Hi, I'm planning to make some parts out of your carbon fibre sheet, what is the best way for me to cut shapes out of the carbon? also will normal drill-bits work to drill it? The parts I am making at the moment are just prototypes, if I want to make more (like hundreds) of parts I don't want to be doing them by hand, can the sheet be laser cut? Thanks. Mike

Hi,

You can use just about any tools to cut and shape carbon. The important thing when working with carbon fibre is to cut the part ‘too big’ and then use a sanding block to smooth and shape the edge. This way, even if the tool you use to cut the part chips the surface slightly, this will be sanded away by the sanding block leaving a nice smooth edge.

The best tools for doing the cutting are ones that use an abrasive as their cutting surface, rather than something with ‘teeth’. Perma-Grit tools are good examples of abrasive tools. If you do use something with teeth for the cutting, always use something with fine teeth (like a metal cutting blade) rather than big teeth (like a wood cutting blade).

Another very useful tool to use to cut straight lines is a slitting disc in a grinder (the type used for stainless steel) this makes light work of the material and leaves an edge with virtually no chipping.

Here’s a link to the Perma-Grit tools on our site:
https://www.easycomposites.co.uk/perma-grit-tools

Here’s a link to a guide about cutting and shaping carbon fibre:
https://www.easycomposites.co.uk/learning/how-to-cut-carbon-fibre-sheet-and-tube

 
Standard drill bits work perfectly well with carbon fibre; best results are achieved with high rotational speed and low pressure, and like with many materials it is best to have something behind the piece like wood to minimise the likelihood of a 'snatch' when the drill bursts through.

There are a number of ways of cutting carbon using CNC machining, the most common are CNC routing and water-jet cutting cnc routing is generally suited to smaller components and ones with small drill holes, water-jet cutting is ideal for larger projects or cutting difficult materials such as Kevlar. Water jet cutting is generally faster that routing but it is very difficult to cut small diameter holes (less than 8mm) due to delamination caused by the jet 'piercing' the material. If you wish to get a quote on water-jet cutting there is a firm near to the Easy Composites facility that is familiar with cutting all of our materials you can contact the here: http://www.waterjetstoke.co.uk/

Laser cutting can be problematic, we have known people to achieve good results, however, by the very term 'composite' having a sheet made up from more than one material each exhibiting different burning/melting characteristics it can be very difficult to achieve the right setting which will lead to a neat finish.

Best of luck with your project.

Paul Statham
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical