Hello, I am interested in purchasing the kits to build a skid plate outof carbon fiber for my moto...sure, it probably costs less to buy one from amanufacturer but, I thought it would be a good project to learn how to make itmyself...I am just not sure how many layers of carbon fiber or kevlar I wouldneed to use. Any suggestions, would be appreciated. Please remember, the bottomof a motorcycle (offroad) will take some hits on rocks or dirt. Also, thefinish, do I just apply a clear coat of paint? (Great tutorials and website!!)Tank you!! Miguel

Hi Miguel,

Thanks for your enquiry.

You don't mention whether or not you have got a mould available for this project (or even an original part to use as the starting point) but I'll assume that you've got the shape that you want to make carbon/kevlar but no mould. If this is the case my suggestion would be as follows:

If the size of the part you want to make is less than about 30cm x 30cm then our Epoxy Mould Making Starter Kit would be perfect for making the mould itself. If it's larger than that then we either have our Large Epoxy Mould Making Starter Kit (which contains enough material for just under 1sqm of mould) or you could even take a look at our Uni-Mould system (if you want to make lots of moulds for other parts on your bike).

Once you've made your mould then you'll need the resin, reinforcement and tools to do the laminating itself. For a skid-plate on an offroad bike you'll certainly need a decent thickness of material to give you the impact protection and strength that you want. I would expect something like 5mm of kevlar reinforcement would be about right. Kevlar would certainly be the better choice material over carbon fibre but if you want to include some carbon/kevlar hybrid then this can be used in just the same way.

I would strongly suggest making the very bottom layer (or bottom 2-3 layers) of reinforcement out of pure Kevlar - since this will be subjected to frequent impacts, kevlar will hold up a LOT better than carbon.

Our 300g Kevlar works out at about 0.4mm per layer (in a finished laminate) which means that to make a 5mm thick plate you'll need about 11 layers of the kevlar.

I would suggest our EL-2 Epoxy Laminating Resin as the resin you use for this part. It wets out Kevlar beautifully, cures quickly and cures very strong. You'll need about the same weight in resin as you have in cloth so if you buy 3m of 300g kevlar (900g of kevlar) then you'd want 1kg of resin. Allow a little extra for the pot/brush etc.

Also, thefinish, do I just apply a clear coat of paint?

My suggestion would be just to leave it as it is (after trimming it). If it's going to get bashed by rocks then there's no point in painting it, only to have the paint chip off!

I hope this helps, Matt


Matt Statham
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Sales