# finding a Carbon fiber supplier



## Tesla (Jun 27, 2008)

I don't know what weave you're going to use or anything so I'll leave it up to you to decide who's best for you. These are all the ones I could find, I'm sure there's more out there:

http://www.uscomposites.com/carbonpage.html

http://www.raka.com/

http://www.tapplastics.com/shop/category.php?bid=45&PHPSESSID=20081026134311777868530

http://www.slymachines.com/catalog/products.asp?catid=8&kw=carbon-fiber-sheets

And since it sounds like you're gonna need a lot you might be able to consider importing from china:

http://buy.ecplaza.net/search/1s1nf20sell/carbon_fiber_cloth.html


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## madderscience (Jun 28, 2008)

I built fiberglass and kevlar pontoons for an HPV project of mine using materials from fiberlay:

http://www.fiberlay.com

they have a retail store in seattle, WA, USA in addition to sales via the website it looks like.


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## Palalat (Nov 3, 2008)

Nice links..Very helpful to me. Great!


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## dreamer (Feb 28, 2009)

Checkout 

http://www.shopmaninc.com/carbonpage.html

They have significant discounts when buying larger quantities. 

Can you describe your project a little ? Are you planning to build something from the ground up with a steel tube chassis and carbon fiber body, or are you talking about a monocoque chassis made from carbon fiber as well ?


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## youngfg (Oct 21, 2008)

http://avtcomposites.com/

I order from them quite a lot, they usually ship the same day.

Here is a pic of my current CF project.










More pics here
http://www.sirscca.org/gene/


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## Bigfoot (Oct 23, 2008)

Man, that is one uuuuugly car. LOL


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## vjp150 (Jun 12, 2008)

that mustang is most likly to to faster than anything you got

but agree that it need a clear coat with shine and i hear that expense when its on carbon


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## IamIan (Mar 29, 2009)

so ....

how much of the car did you replace with Carbon Fiber ?

how much weight did it save you ?

how much did it cost?

How long did it take?

inquiring minds want to know


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## youngfg (Oct 21, 2008)

I have replaced 99% of the car with carbon fiber. The only metallic parts are the firewalls which are required by the rules.

The car as it is now weighs 1748 lbs, the street version was around 3300 lbs.

As for cost, I haven't added it up, I really don't want to know, but it's under 10k.

I have been working on the car on and off for two years.

The car is very dusty so the finish doesn't look very good, I plan on putting a clear coat on it.


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## IamIan (Mar 29, 2009)

youngfg said:


> The car as it is now weighs 1748 lbs, the street version was around 3300 lbs.


nice weight savings ...  ... now if I have ~$10k and 2 years ... hmmm....

Any reason you didn't seem to go for a more aerodynamic profile while you were rebuilding so much of it?

Do you have any data about the failure mode of the carbon fiber you used?
If you get in an accident is it as safe ... safer... or less safe than the original?


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## youngfg (Oct 21, 2008)

The car has a full tube frame and roll cage for racing, the carbon fiber panels are only the cosmetic body work, they carry no loads.


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## rallyshark (Sep 19, 2008)

I thought you had to use prepreg carbon fiber for structural load stuff (for topic poster).

I've heard that carbon fiber which is laid like fiberglass is just not strong enough to withstand structural stresses. It is good for weight savings on non-load-bearing parts.

Pre-impregnated carbon fiber has the resin built into weave and it is baked in a huge oven (autoclave) to bring it to full hardness and strength. The autoclave produces high temperatures and high pressures....and autoclaves are crazy expensive and HUGE.

If someone has info that contradicts this or knows different from personal experience, please say so...I was going to do a carbon fiber chassis but am leaning towards aluminum not because of the cost of the carbon fiber but the cost of an autoclave to do it right.

Do I misunderstand, or am I only getting half of the story?


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## youngfg (Oct 21, 2008)

There are several ways to lay up any composite.

What I know from worst to best.

Wet lay up.
With wet lay up you just wet out your fabric in the mold. If you are using polyester resin you have to do this, it doesn't like to vacuumed. You also cannot use any type of honeycomb core material with wet lay up because you will flood the cells with resin. It's hard to control the resin to fiber ratio with wet layup so your parts will always be the heaviest and weakest of any method. You also may have air pockets in the part that you can't eliminate. But many experimental airplanes have been built with only wet layup for the structure, you just have to know how to work around the problems.

Vacuum bagging.
You can add vacuum bagging on to wet layup to help reduce your resin content and reduce the number of air pockets. 

Vacuum bagging and an autoclave.
Adding the autoclave increases the pressure on the part in the mold reducing further your resin content and air pockets.

Vacuum bagging and autoclave and pre-preg.
Pre-preg material guarantees a set resin amount for the most strength, and requires heat to cure it. You can also use honeycomb core material to greatly increase the strength, since there is no free resin to flood the cells.


I use a hybrid method.
I make my own "pre-preg" material by wetting the cloth out on a table, not in the mold, where I can control the amount of resin in the cloth. Then I put the impregnated cloth in the mold and vacuum bag it. This allows me to use honeycomb to make very light strong parts, and not need an oven to cure the epoxy.

But to answer your question, I would practice a lot before I attempted to make a structural part out of carbon fiber. Look around at the experimental aircraft sites, a lot of those planes home made are composites.

Like this site.
http://www.corsair82.com/corsair/wing/wing.html


Some other places to look for composite info.

http://www.racingcomposites.net/
http://www.compositeforum.werksberg.com/


One of these days I want to build my self a all CF three wheel electric car.


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