Talk Composites - The Forum for Advanced Composites

World Superbike air tubes...

http://www.talkcomposites.com/Topic8250.aspx

By morepower - 10/28/2013 10:42:40 PM

I was asked to make some air tubes for a guy restoring a Suzuki World Superbike. It was from the 750cc era and he has most parts but the air tubes he had were copies of the genuine parts but weighed in at over 500grams. They were also gel coated black so he wanted carbon. It had to be the same weave and look as good as the factory part. After he asked me to do them he was given one section of the set in brand new condition for him to check out. I was sent the part and to say it was perfect would be a lie. It had pin holes in there and although it was nice it was not worth the £1600 Suzuki originally charged for the full set. 

Here are a few photos of the ones I made. 
 
Pattern ones.



weight of the pattern parts sections.


Starting lay up..




Bagged using a bagging tube through the middle of the tubes and another bag run outside the moulds then the two are sealed to each other to allow the inner bag to expand out and pull the carbon into the mould and the outer bag to seal it all and allow the vacuum fitting to be used.

Parts straight out of the mould and not even tidied up yet here... Still has the flashing from the two mould halves.


The two halves put together..

This first set did have a couple of little issues but the second set did not have any issues and the finish out of the mould was better than the original £1600 set. 


yes it has a few pin holes but it is better than most out of autoclave pre-preg finishes..
By Magneto - 5/16/2018 4:41:29 PM

 
Magneto - 5/16/2018 4:40:28 PM
 
Magneto - 5/16/2018 4:40:16 PM
 
morepower - 11/1/2013 6:31:22 PM
Warren (Staff) (01/11/2013)
They look brilliant and to be fair, for what is going on a race bike and should primarily be concerned with performance and weight only, they are more than adequate for the job in hand!! Even full of pinholes it would still do the job.

Your pursuit of perfection is impressive!


Cheers.. It is more of a pursuit of keeping road riding wannabees off my back... I have seen some really expensive factory parts and they are full of pinholes as the teams see them as a consumable part and why spend time making it flawless?? Road riders see the press bikes or show bikes that do have every part flawless. They want THAT part....  and then it is the "Oh I know the real part is £3000. But you are making a copy so it has to be less how about £200??" Hmm..... Erm.... let me think about that......... Erm.. NO.... haha..


Hi, can anyone tell me please how to make a ring like that one :


https://www.carbotrade.at/carbonringe/42/carbon-ring-partnerring-carbon-wolfram-blau/silber


I know that there is one ring of Metal and one slice of a carbon fiber tube, but how can u put them together ? It looks so great!