Making a carbon fibre bike

[toast boy]

After reading this Instructables, I've been having a think about having a go of this myself. Does anyone have any opinions/ideas on top of what is covered in the link? I'm planning on getting hold of some CF sheet & resin etc. to practice on first before I go charging in but the technique is reasonably straight forward and not dissimilar from fibreglass production. Does anyone have any idea where the best place to source sheet CF would be also?

[rdodger]

http://www.carbonmods.co.uk/

[Raven Flyer]

Unless you have a way of vac bagging and auto claving the frame, I wouldn't bother.

It will be hard to end up with something that is not heavy, unsightly and twisted.

[anonymous-user]

getting it aligned would be so hard without the proper toolings. just look at the jig required to make a steel frame!...

[anonymous-user]

It's certainly do-able, but the investment in time and learning would be very steep, and to get it to look nice as well, very hard! Certainly you will almost certianly spend what it would have cost you just to buy a nice CF frame in the end, but if it's more a "fun learning exercise" rather than a "money saver" then gst stuck in and have a go!


(recommend buying one of the "CF starter kits" and playing around, you'll soon find out if you have the patience for CF work, and making hollow section parts is a bit of a knack ;-)

here's the shift lever from my rallycar, there's probably 80hrs of my time in just that (inc patterns etc):

Edited by anonymous-user on Friday 5th November 11:14

[toast boy]

Well, it would mainly be a 'fun learning exercise' rather than a 'money saving exercise', I'm under no illusion that even doing the fabrication myself, it's still going to be rather expensive. I do however enjoy learning new skills and this would be something both useful and enjoyable to have as a skill. As with most things to do with fabrication and engineering to create a professional looking and functional part takes a great deal of time and effort but I reckon it's worth it in the end. I like your idea of the starter kits though, I'll have a look into that. Cheers.

[Parrot of Doom]

Why not have a go at a bamboo bike instead? Much easier, and rarer.

[toast boy]

Parrot of Doom said:

Why not have a go at a bamboo bike instead? Much easier, and rarer.

I had a look at a few bamboo bike builds but apart from the carbon one where he made the joining sections himself, I'd be unsure about the strength of the joint? Also, one of the guys said his bamboo bike turned out about as heavy as his steel framed bike, which sort of defeats the object a bit to me.

[snotrag]

Have you ever worked with Glass fibre before?

I would have thought that getting good at working with glas fibre first would be useful as its much, much cheaper, then once your comfortable working with this type of process then it will be much easier to move your skills to carbon fibre?

Fibre glass is a really interesting material to work with (you probably wouldnt make a bike frame out of it though!) and not too dear. Have a go at a fibreglass canoe!

[anonymous-user]

I would second the idea of starting in glass, rather than CF, however, there is a LOT of stuff you can get away with when working in glass (Especially if not using woven rovings!!)that just doesn't work in CF. Glass work teaches you the basics, like mixing resins, the correct proportions, how much time you have to "work" with your piece etc. Then you move to CF, and just getting the cloth to conform to the mold becomes a 'mare in itself lol!

[Roman]

It would make an excellent project for James May on Man Lab but thinking about it, I'd rather see it as a Top Gear (Children in need?) challenge. How funny would Jeremy Clarkson look wearing a skinsuit and aero helmet on a badly designed and made carbon TT bike?

[option click]

Whilst I can't offer any advice re: building or sourcing of CF, you may find this thread interesting - it's written by a guy in Slovenia who did a build diary about his recent CF frame. He's very talented, albeit with an unfortunate surname

http://fairwheelbikes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&...

See p8 for pics of the final result

Edited by option click on Friday 5th November 13:34

[toast boy]

I've had some experience working with fibreglass, I suppose the sensible thing to do would be to make some similar shapes in glass to test out then move to cf.