By DIY GUY - 2/9/2020 9:31:52 PM
Hi
I have a project to construct a carbon fibre reinforced rifle barrel, these are commercially available at a hefty price. My plan is to take an existing barrel turn in down in the lathe to a require dimension then build it back up with carbon to an over size to maximise the rigidity and strength while not including the weight of steel.
I see my best option is to use a single tow varying the angles with each layer ie 90, 45, 45, 30, 30 degrees etc, over all laminate thickness will be between 5 - 6.5mm
My questions is would you recommend a wet lay up dipping the tow through a resin bath or a pre preg layup ?
Regarding pre preg (something I have never worked with before) how critical is the baking temps and times ? Do you have to use a special oven or is there other options ?
I see you have out of oven pre preg materials - does this mean it can be cured with out baking ?
Any advise would be greatly appreciated.
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By Matt (Staff) - 2/13/2020 9:05:54 AM
Hi, Warren's off today so I thought I'd pitch in on his behalf.
Personally, I think this project would be made a lot more difficult using either infusion or wet-lay processes, as opposed to oven cured prepreg. The reason for this is simply because of how easy and straight forward it would be using prepreg and the 'cure' would take care of the 'post cure' that you'd really need to do on a wet-lay or infused laminate anyway (to get the higher temperature stability you need).
To do this project using prepreg, you would need little by way of materials, time or equipment and it would be easy to achieve a very good result in terms of mechanicals and aesthetics.
Using prepreg, the process would be:
- Key the outer surface of the metal barrel
- Use our XC130 undirectional prepreg, aligned length-ways down the barrel. Apply pressure using a flat plate to consolidate the prepreg tightly onto the barrel and keep 'rolling' until you achieve the desired thickness.
- Switch to a layer of our XC130 210g woven finish prepreg for the outer layer. This is a much more durable surface for the outside of the barrel (UDs can 'splinter').
- Wrap the barrel tightly using our composites shrink tape. This special tape contracts at temperature and will consolidate the prepreg during cure.
- Put the carbon wrapped barrel in an oven. Precise temperature control would not be necessary, you could probably just start from cold and switch it up in a couple of steps to a final cure temp of 120C.
- Cool, remove the wrap and do any final finishing you want. The finish will be good already, with slight ridges from the overlaps on the tape.
This really would be the easiest way!
I hope this gives you some food for thought at least. It's not to say that wet-lay or infusion aren't possible and you may still choose to go that way but this is one of those projects that would almost do itself if you take the most suitable route.
All the best, Matt
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