Stripping paint to expose carbon

[carphotographer]

Just brought a caterham 7 that has the factory carbon wings and nose cone. The previous owner got them painted because he said the carbon faded. Just wondered how easy it is to strip the paint off, and then relaquer the carbon and does carbon fade ?
Cheers
Jon

[HustleRussell]

I don't think the wings are lacquered from factory. Moisture gets under the gel coat and once that happens you get this milky, faded appearance.

If you can persuade a painter to sand all of the topcoat and primer off (which will probably take a couple of hours), and provided the carbon fibre isn't delaminating, it's appearance may be improved to a degree with application of lacquer- but you'll never get it looking like it should, and by this point you will probably be in for £200-300...

You'll probably find that people are pretty reluctant to take this on as it's a bit specialist and you may or may not be satisfied with the result.

[swisstoni]

I'd be interested in any CF expert responses. I've got a carbon spoiler on my Tuscan that wasn't too well finished by the supplier - not much gloss.
If it's just normal clearcoat that's used, I can probably just treat it accordingly.

[Squiggs]

HustleRussell said:

I don't think the wings are lacquered from factory. Moisture gets under the gel coat and once that happens you get this milky, faded appearance.

If you can persuade a painter to sand all of the topcoat and primer off (which will probably take a couple of hours), and provided the carbon fibre isn't delaminating, it's appearance may be improved to a degree with application of lacquer- but you'll never get it looking like it should, and by this point you will probably be in for £200-300...

You'll probably find that people are pretty reluctant to take this on as it's a bit specialist and you may or may not be satisfied with the result.

Good reply.

Sanding the paint off is likely to damage the carbon - once the carbon is damaged there's no turning back.

[HustleRussell]

Squiggs said:

Good reply.

Sanding the paint off is likely to damage the carbon - once the carbon is damaged there's no turning back.

it would be a painstaking process, only possible by hand on some parts of the wings and nose cone. Hours of work.

[mneame]

Might be worth looking on a few owners forums to see if someone has a set that they were going to paint and do a swap.

Personally I wouldn't try and sand the paint back to reveal the carbon again. Too much risk and not economical. Unless you'd be willing to just chuck them away if it all goes wrong.