After being introduced to the idea of carbon skinning by a friend, I was feeling brave and decided to order one of the starter kits from a company called Carbonmods. The kit has everything you would need, in theory, to create a small number of carbon fibre covered parts. After watching their YouTube videos and reading through the instructions several times, I chose a few small and, more importantly, flat interior pieces to start working on.
The process looks and sounds fairly simple, but then, they always do. The first step is to sand the parts with 120 grit wet and dry paper and then apply a thin layer of the black epoxy resin base coat.
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Dave W, on Flickr
As it becomes tacky, that base coat then allows the carbon fibre to stick to the part. This was by far the most awkward stage to get right. You only really get one shot at it and the carbon weave seems to want to distort if you even consider touching it, let alone as you try to carefully wrap it around the shapes of the part. It takes a lot of patience to get everything to line up nicely, but after a lot of time and a lot of swearing, I was satisfied that I'd got the weave lined up nicely.
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Dave W, on Flickr
You then need to apply the first layer of clear epoxy resin to bond the carbon to the base coat and the part itself. Once this coat of resin is dry, it's time to trim the extra carbon around the part to clean up the edges. I was surprised at how solid such a thin sheet of carbon had become with just one layer of resin on top. The problem with that though was that, while trimming, the carbon seemed to break off into tiny, razor sharp needles. Carbon fibre splinters in your fingers are great. :thumb:
Once the parts were trimmed, this was the first time I got to see how everything actually lined up from piece to piece. I'd chosen parts that would sit next to each other in the car, so I was keen to have the weave lining up nicely. Thankfully, I was able to breathe a sigh of relief as they all seemed to line up ok.
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Dave W, on Flickr
After a quick scuff up of the surface to get the next few layers to adhere properly, it was time to build up some layers of clear epoxy to get that deep gloss finish. This was when the parts started to take shape.
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Dave W, on Flickr
After about 4 more layers of the clear epoxy I managed to sand the surface to a nice smooth and even finish with 400 grit wet and dry. You then need to work through the various grades to refine the finish before either polishing or lacquering the parts to get that gloss finish. I chose to lacquer the parts after finishing with the 1200 grit wet and dry paper. Once the lacquer had dried I gave it a light going over with 2000 grit and then polished them by hand until I was happy with the finish.
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Dave W, on Flickr
This was the parts all finished and waiting to go back in the car.