Carbon Work

Remember this project?  You thought I had bailed out on it didn't you?  Nope, there will be no bailing out, only small delays, numerous small delays.  The good news is, everything is going pretty well, a little better than anticipated.  This is my first attempt at vac-bagging the whole frame and its much easier to do than just one small section.  If you make the bags big enough in the beginning you can use them more than once.  I'm only wrapping one section at a time in order to try and learn the best possible process for laying this stuff up.  Practice is key and each time I'm learning and getting a bit better.  Here are a couple of photos of the frame after coming out of the bag and then after I sanded and cleaned up the juncture.

I was happy with this, its not perfect but I think its structually solid and I'm gonna add a cosmetic layer over all the junctures before its complete.

This side had a bit of a wrinkle but it wasn't too bad. It sanded out easily and after adding another layer or two should be fine.

After being sanded, its smooth and not bulky at all.  This is probably the minimum amount of laminate that I would use and it will be plenty strong after beefing it up, however since this frame is for me I'm gonna push the envelope a little.

Just wipe a little Wrinkle Be Gone on and the wrinkles just, well, they be gone. I'm gonna start referring to this process as carbon fillet-brazing, like when Scott came out with their CR1 and labeled it 'carbon welding'.

These photos are a couple of days old and I actually just finished the bottom bracket juncture yesterday. I don't have any pictures of it yet.  Most of it turned out ok however there is one bad spot on the inside of the right chainstay that will have to be sanded down completely and rewrapped.  A pretty big wrinkle got squeezed into it and it needs some work, so thats where I'm headed today, just as soon as I get my wife's car unstuck out of the driveway.  She basically slid it sideways last night and it about rolled off the edge of our drive which is not good.  Luckily its pretty secure at the moment and in the morning maybe the driveway will be melted enough to just drive it out.  Crossing my fingers.

Thanks for stopping by.