Hey All,

Im new to this whole Carbon work and thought id buy a mould making and laminting kit from easy composites.

Now as my first test of how this all works im attempting to make a carbon replica of my B&M Shifter cover..

A few questions:

1) am i best to cover up and smooth all the edges with plasticine / wax filler ??

2) am i best to use the wax mould release on this and lay carbon down onto it OR

3) am i best to take a mould of it and smooth the mould out with wet and dry before laying the carbon down on the mould..

Below is some pics of the gaps and cover in question...









Once and if this comes out well i will attempt to modify my existing dash and remove the gauges and recess my digital dash into it..

Hi there,

Thanks for your post, this looks like an interesting project although, I'll be honest, quite ambitious for your first carbon fibre project. That's not to say it can't be done but like any new skills and techniques, there's a bit of learning to be done and there will inevitably be some mistakes a long the way too. Because of this, the smaller and simpler your early parts are, the less frustrating (and costly) the learning curve will be.

Getting back to the gear shifter that you've posted your pictures of, here's my thoughts...

Am i best to cover up and smooth all the edges with plasticine / wax filler ??

Yes, you would need to fill and smooth all the holes, recessing, gaps etc. in the part before you could take a mould off it. Our Yellow Filleting Wax is the easiest material to work with for this process.

Am i best to 2) use the wax mould release on this and lay carbon down onto it OR am i best to 3) take a mould of it and smooth the mould out with wet and dry before laying the carbon down on the mould..

Well, this is a big question. The first way you describe is using the original part as a male former or male mould rather than the conventional technique of making a female mould first and then using the female mould to make an exact replica of the original part. The advantage to method (1) is that you don't need to make a female mould (which in the case would probably involve a split mould), the disadvantage is that the part you make will be larger than the original and getting a flat and smooth surface finish will be difficult, time consuming and involve adding a lot of extra resin. The advantage to (2) is basically the opposite to those for (1) i.e. that the part will be the same size as the original and will have a really nice smooth flat finish 'out of the mould'; the disadvantage is that you'll need to first make the female mould and in the case of this part that might need to be a split mould.

If you're unsure what I mean by a split mould then take a look at our video tutorial about making a complex split-mould. Your part is not as complicated as the airbox in the video but seems to have (at the very least) parallel sides and some severe undercuts which would make at least 1 split necessary and maybe even two splits.

If you do go down the route of making a mould, you'll still need to contend with a very difficult layup with restricted access inside the mould and you may well need to make the part it two halves and then assemble after. Whilst I'm never out to discourage anyone from doing what they really want to do, I would certainly suggest you consider starting with something smaller and simpler (where a split-mould would not be required) as your first project. We want you to build on your successes rather than be discouraged by early difficulties.

I hope this helps,

Matt

Matt Statham
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Sales

There's no real limit to the amount of layers you could laminate and then vacuum bag. If you're referring to resin infusion rather than vacuum bagging then, although you can certainly infuse very thick laminates, there would eventually be a limit to how much laminate the resin would infuse through. It does depend on the type of reinforcement - some, like 2/2 twills, flow much quicker than others, like unidirectionals. You can certainly infuse several millimeters of laminate, providing it flows well enough, which could be 10+ layers of fabric.

It's also worth noting that some infusion resins, like our IN2 Epoxy Infusion Resin will flow slower than others, like our IP2 Polyester Infusion Resin, which is considerably quicker and will therefore be able to infuse through thicker laminates. It's often the case that projects that use much thicker laminates, like a boat hull for example, would lend themselves to a polyester infusion resin whereas thinner laminates are often for higher spec projects and are therefore more suited to epoxy infusion resin.

I hope this helps.

Matt

Matt Statham
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Sales