Lacquering a carbon splitter

[Graham-P]

After five coats of lacquer on my carbon splitter I still have thousands of pin holes, looks crap at the moment. Apart from another five coats and a lot of luck, has anyone whose been there done it got any inside tips or is it just applying clear coats and hope that they will eventually go?

[cartoons]

when i`ve lacquered carbon i put some ppg anti-silicone additive in and it flows out leaving no pinholes.i can`t remember the product code but i`ll try to remember to look tomorrow if you need it.that`s assuming you`re using 2k of course.if it`s 1k or cellulose get it warm and put it on heavy!

[snuffle]

Are you flatting between coats or just trying to bury the holes?.

[JulesB]

Putting more lacquer on wont sort it out, it will just make the pinholes more obvious and make the splitter chip up easier when its on the road, you need to flat it all back, clean it properly, prime it, re clean it, paint it then lacquer it (one grip, one wet coat) Do it in an aerosol/cleaning product free area, the more tyre gels etc around the more silicone in your paint.

[7even]

[quote=JulesB]you need to flat it all back, clean it properly, prime it, re clean it, paint it then lacquer [quote]

kinda defeats the point of a "carbon splitter"

[JulesB]

You will have to forgive me, I only read splitter, remove the painting+priming part and and you are good to go

[snuffle]

Or use a clear primer,
but for what it is worth most lacquers offer very poor adhesion to bare carbon (although the pinholes will provide some grip) , stonechips are the worst enemy.

[richtvr]

Dupont do a proper lacquer for carbon, we use it on our concept work knocks loads of time of the job, will get the code for you next week

Before this tho the correct way to do it is a dust coat of transparent sealer, then 5/6 dusty coats of lacquer like you have silicon your trying to get rid of, knock down with 600 and re lacquer

Rich

[Evoluzione]

JulesB said:

You will have to forgive me, I only read splitter, remove the painting+priming part and and you are good to go

No you were right, CF is used primarily to be strong and light, not to be pretty.
In order to give it the chav look it's coated in heavy clear gel coat and umpteen coats of clear lacquer making it heavy and crack easily thus going against what it was initially designed for....