Do any of you clever composite fellows have any ideas on creating a clean break line between a carbon skinned surface and a plain (painted) surface? I attempted masking with tape an area I did not want skinned but came to the quick realization that the resin would slightly cover the tape and not allow me to remove it. BAD PLAN !!!  

Hi Gearhead,

The trick to this is certainly to have a 'scruffy' transition between the painted part and the carbon part, then flat and finish the blend so that it is physically (although not visually) smooth before masking off a line somewhere over where the carbon 'skin' has fully started and spraying the painted area again up to the masked line. You then remove the masking tape and finally spray the whole thing (painted area and carbon skinned area) in clear coat/lacquer before a final flat and polish. The lacquer will bury the slight step between the overpainted area and the carbon skin leaving a pure solid line between the paint and the carbon but nothing you can feel. It's lots of work but this is how it's done.

You can also 'blend' between the paint and the carbon in this way by feathering out the paint and then lacquering over the top. This works amazingly for black edges blended into carbon. It's a sneaky process that you can use on carbon parts where something has gone wrong at the edges and the best of it is that it looks so good that you would always think it was intentional. European manufacturers call this 'executive edges'.

--Paul

Paul Statham
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical

 So in the "Executive edges" technique, by "feathering out" you mean a gradual change from carbon to black color verses a sharp line where they join? That sounds like a cool look!!! How would I do that? Carbon first then feathered paint afterwards?  

can a coat of high temp epoxy be used all over instead of laquer?

Yes you can use a high temp black paint to blend the edges, just feather the paint in from the edge, I see no problem in then coating this with the high temp resin and then flatting it out and polishing it to a final finish. I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure you can get high temperature clear-coat paints that you could also use for the last 'gloss' coat.

Paul Statham
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical

Is the part already painted ? ,