I would like to carbon skin a part and I have a question regarding the 'tack' time before applying the carbon.  The part I want to skin is quite large and has complex surfaces.  I don't want the resin base coat to be really tacky as once you lay the carbon it is very difficult to manipulate into position within damaging the weave pattern.   Therefore, could you lay the carbon earlier, so that the base coat is not so tacky and allows you to manipulate the carbon ? The process states 1-2 hours, but laying on after 10-30 minutes, would this cause any issues ?

Hi Lenny,

As the other guys have suggested, putting carbon fabric onto very wet basecoat needs to be avoided because the black basecoat will push through the carbon and spoil the appearance. However, if your part is black already (or could be made black prior) then you can use the XCR Clear Epoxy Coating Resin instead of the XCR basecoat to stick your carbon down. By using the clear resin you won't have to worry about the black coming through the carbon and so, using this method, you could put the carbon down straight away onto the wet clear resin.

The process above required the part to already be black. One way to achieve this would be to use the basecoat on its own, allow it to fully cure (blacking out your part), then key the basecoat (to provide a good key) and then apply the clear XCR resin onto the cured and keyed basecoat. You can now put the dry carbon straight onto the wet clear resin and position it all you like (being careful of course). This process wouldn't work too well if you have concave corners on your shape - such corners really need the tackiness of the basecoat to stick the carbon into properly, with a liquid resin underneath the carbon is likely to slide out any concave corners.

I hope this helps and that you get on well with the XCR; it's an amazing new product and we'd be very pleased to hear your feedback and see your results. We'll be producing a new XCR skinning video in the coming weeks.

All the best, Matt

Matt Statham
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Sales