Curing carbon parts ready for paint.

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Curing carbon parts ready for paint.

Author	Message
andygtt	andygtt posted 12 Years Ago HOT Topic Details
Group: Forum Members Posts: 157, Visits: 1.2K	I have pulled a number of parts which I will soon need to paint... the parts are large and as its bodywork I need the paint finish to be perfect and remain so. my question is what prep do I need to have done... I don't have an oven large enough for the parts, they have been pulled for at least 1 month and left in the house but will have only seen 20deg... is this enough. Also if I use a high quality 2 pack laquer can I clear coat them and then later primer and paint this laquer to a perfect finish? The main reason I want to clear the parts is some of them will be visable carbon with some areas painted... I mean I cant hide all that loverly carbon
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Daz	Daz posted 12 Years Ago HOT Post Details
Group: Forum Members Posts: 93, Visits: 651	I would like to know the answer to this as well Andy.
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wozza	wozza posted 12 Years Ago HOT Post Details
Group: Forum Members Posts: 688, Visits: 5.4K	Hi Andy, I did some Clio front wings a few months back and had them painted at my local body shop. The problem was that the 2k paint they used required baking at 50 degrees. This caused the Epoxy resin to soften and the wings lost their shape. (lesson learned) Luckily we put the wings back in their moulds with some house bricks for weight and re baked them at 60 degrees and they returned to their original shape. So my advise would be get them in the spraybooth/oven in the moulds and bake them at a higher temperature than that required for the paint finish "before" you paint them. Warren Carbon Copies Ltd
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WillBaker	WillBaker posted 12 Years Ago HOT Post Details
Group: Forum Members Posts: 4, Visits: 324	Hi Andy, Where abouts are you located, I might be able to help out. Many thanks, Will.
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Bruce	Bruce posted 12 Years Ago HOT Post Details
Group: Forum Members Posts: 18, Visits: 432	As mentioned by wozzaYou need to bake them for as long as you can as hot as they can stand for the painting if you laquer them first and are happy with the adhesion of the laquer to the carbon you shouldn't have to primer them .flat, the laquer down ,mask off the areas where the fabric is going to be visible with fine line tape then colour them with basecoat remove the tape from the masked area and laquer again the only problem i can see with this is that the Clearcoat is a lot more expensive than the primer you could laquer out the area's where you want visible fabric ,just spray it on with out masking it then flat the whole panel down and mask off the area where its laquered and primer the rest of the panel then flat the primer and the laquered area mask off the area again then basecoat remove the masking and clear again would be cheaper than laquering the whole panel first
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fgayford	fgayford posted 12 Years Ago HOT Post Details
Group: Forum Members Posts: 433, Visits: 1.2K	andygtt (22/01/2013) I have pulled a number of parts which I will soon need to paint... the parts are large and as its bodywork I need the paint finish to be perfect and remain so. my question is what prep do I need to have done... I don't have an oven large enough for the parts, they have been pulled for at least 1 month and left in the house but will have only seen 20deg... is this enough. Also if I use a high quality 2 pack laquer can I clear coat them and then later primer and paint this laquer to a perfect finish? The main reason I want to clear the parts is some of them will be visable carbon with some areas painted... I mean I cant hide all that loverly carbon I also wondered how long it takes for epoxy to cure fully. I asked my supplier here in Canada and he said 77f for 7 days would do it or 2 days at 110f. Surely you could get some heat lamps and direct them to your part while still in the mold. A few electric space heaters underneath would also work. Build a little tent or something over the part to hold the heat. If your clear sticks well, scuff and apply your base coat (color) and clear without primer. Should be fine. Hope this helps. Fred
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andygtt	andygtt posted 12 Years Ago HOT Post Details
Group: Forum Members Posts: 157, Visits: 1.2K	Ok thanks for all the advice guys. What I did for my doors is cranked the temp up on my electric fire in one of my small bedrooms... then slowly the temp got itself up to 41dec C.... did it a couple of times. Ive then given the doors and outer moulds to a local paint shop with experience is painting carbon parts (aftermarket and original ferrari items), they are going to put the doors in the outer mould and get temp above 60 deg C and then prep the doors. they have previously painted clear epoxy resin onto carbon parts before flatting and the clearing in 2 pack.... not sure why they painted epoxy first but seems the pre preg parts they got required it??? anyhow they will see what they need to do so once done I will report back what was actually needed and results
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