after a lot of trial and error... and a lot of help and guidance from the boys.... I've finally made something for my hillclimb car that I can share...

Hi,

Congrats for winning the war against leaks and bubbles !!

Hope we'll see more soon

Cheers from Belgium.

 



 


    A $1000 electronic device will always protect a 10 cents fuse

are those 4 layers strong? I mean, can you bend it in any direction? Is it stiff?

Matthieu Libeert
Founder MAT2 Composites X Sports
website: www.mat2composites.com

Hi. Front to back it is ridged but corner to opposite corner there is some twist. Normal for these cycle wings when bought from the big boys like Fluke/Mogg. It's a none structural part it's only purpose to catch rain from the tyre. 

Looking good Rob! Cycle wings are actually a pretty difficult part to make, dispite looking quite simple so you've done well there. Fluke/Mog use 1 layer of carbon fibre and the rest woven glass wet-laid with polyester resin so it's no suprise that your 100% carbon resin infused epoxy wings are stiffer and lighter.

The reason for the 'twist' is the shape of cycle wings; they don't really have an inherent stiffness because they're mainly a flat area with only small 'uprights' either side. It's a pain to do but at Carbon Mods when we were developing our cycle wings we experimented with a PVC foam core along the flat section. This adds a huge amount of stiffness and stops 'star crazing' on the top of the wing caused by stone-strikes underneath. In the end, we couldn't run with this idea because it made the parts even more expensive to produce but they were a nice prototype.

All the best, Matt

Matt Statham
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Sales

Cheers Matt