Hello to everyone, as you will see I am new to site and are just getting started ' please if anyone can advise on my project I would be grateful.  I am making a carbon fibre sleeve for my eghaust on my motorcycle and I have made mandrel part replica of my eghaust to rap the carbon fibre around and so on, the bit im stuck on is how do I do a neet seem joint where the end of the carbon sheet meets the other , I could overlap it but I am after the look of if two sheets but up to each other ......Please any help

What i would suggest for a good cosmetic finish is our ProFinishCarbon Fibre 2/2 Twill as it can be cut neatly without fraying so you might be able to get that neat seam.  We usually recommend overlapping it anyway as by the time you have several coats of resin and its sanded smooth and polished up again then you wont see any height difference.

The alternative is to use our CarbonFibre Braided Sleeve if its big enough for your exhaust as there is no seam.

Warren Penalver
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Support Assistant

Thank you very much for your advice 'that definitely seems the way to go , , allso I have to have a layer of heat proof foil inside the tube , do you sell such a material and if so any ideas on how to bond it to the carbon ' thankyou. ....

We don't sell any heatproof foils.  Plenty of motorsport type places sell that kind of reflective shielding as well as the ceramic filled stuff.

Warren Penalver
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Support Assistant

Ok my freind I'll have a look down the root , thanks for info....

Sorry my friend forgot to ask how many layers would you suggest for this type of project includeing any reinforcement + coats of resin ......any advice appreciated thankyou. ..

I have done a few "sleeves" for normal motorbike exhaust pipes, all cylindrical "tubes" done directly on the original exhaust... (No mandrel or anything) one of them while it was on the bike..

I made them with pure kevlar mat as the first layer, and only put on a thin layer of high temp resin, with black colour added on the outside of the kevlar, this leaves a thin layer of insulating, fireproof kevlar, with no resin, against the hot metal of the original exhaust pipe.  I wrapped it in cling film to keep it in place.
I let the high temp resin cure to the "tacky" state, pulled off the cling film, then did a hand lay up of just one layer of EC Pro-finish Twill, it tacks nicely to the black high temp resin coat, and then I just did a standard wet lay up painting on high temp resin liberally and working it into the CF with a bristle roller.  I then wrapped it first in peel ply and then in perforated film and secured the perforated film with tape at the ends.  I did a slight overlap of the CF on the inside of the "can" and while it may not be perfectly straight it still looks very good... The perforated film lets excess resin through the holes, out into a layer of cotton cloth wrapped on the outside = no messy dripping excess resin...

The ends of the exhaust can were wrapped very carefully with flashbreaker tape and I put a bit of spray release on the parts around the exhaust, so no drops of resin would stick where I did not want it to.

After a full cure (Left the bike in the garage till next day) I removed the exhaust can from the bike, removed all the wrapping, and the peel ply, taped up the visible metal parts and had the local Auto-painter give it a single layer of heat resistant clear coat...  Job done ...

The bike has run with the "wrapped can" all summer, and it still looks very nice, no sign of heat damage of any kind. .... I'll see if I can find the pictures...



 


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Thakyou my freind for your insite , seems a very interesting way of doing it would be interesting to see any pics you have ...cheers 

Best way to do it would be to either do the seam as neat as you can but do it at the back/wherever is least seen,

Thank you my friend , I like the idea with pizza cutter seems like that would be a neat finish just what im after ' I'll let you know how I go thanks once again.