Hello!

Im pretty new to this, but I'ved played around with carbon laminating a while. My next project is to make a carbon saddle for my racebikes.


The saddle is the same as the picture. My question is how to mould this without ruining it. And how do i cover up the stitching and the logo wich is sunk into the "leather", maybe it will do fine wit some filleting wax?

Another question is how i could do the rails (metalpieces underneath) or something similar to them without sanding out a plug. The best would be to just get some mould from them and laminating it, but how do i get them free from air in the process?

/Andreas

You would have to be pretty certain of your methods if you are concerned about damaging the seat you have. It could be possible with the usual methods of wax and PVA release systems to make a mould but you should test that first on an old seat to be sure? You could simply wrap it very well with a gloss tape as a real barrier? Of course the mould would then have tape lines in it too.

Next option could be to find an old seat that you can take a chance with or even strip an old seat and paint/seal it to work with a more traditional surface to mould from. This way you could also add/fix moulding flanges easier that doing so with the good one.

Last option I have is that you could make a silicone mould from the good seat you have since the right silicone materials (body moulding stuff) are totally harmless, and then make new pattern from that mould which you can then use to make another "real" mould. Maybe expensive due to using silicone and a bit of extra work too?

This is a much more difficult project to undertake, than it seems, superficially ...

The seat itself gets its properties from the interaction between the steel/alloy "rods" under the seat and the semi-rigid plastic that the leather is bonded to.

If you make a simple mould from the seat upper surface, and lay up a CF "shell" from that, in a thickness that can hold the bodyweight of an adult male (60 - 80 kg) then it will be much stiffer than the original

The two "rods/rails" that make up the "lower suspension" of the saddle are clamped on to the "saddle-pin" in a clamp that relies on high  "chrushing forces" from the clamp to hold it in place.

You can not make a CF/resin rod that will stand up to that kind of point load, so you can not make use of the normal saddle-pin you will most likely have to use a specialized saddle pin with longer /wider clamping points.

You should probably take a good long "google-fu" of existing CF saddles ... to sort out how to make it ...

I have tried a fairly long road trip on a racing bike with a CF saddle, and they are extreme to say the least, without very good padding in your cycle shorts, you will discover new worlds of discomfort ..

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