I’m looking for a little insight here on resin. I want to build a hood for my snowmobile out of CF/Kevlar Hybrid, but I’m at a loss as far as a resin goes. Right now most of the light weight hood in the industry are made from glass (gel coated) or polycarbonate and will stress crack with in a year or so of riding. See, when most of us get stuck in deep snow (a foot or more) it’s not unusual for us to roll our sled over their hoods.
So here’s what I’m looking for, Some thing that can handle the cold, resist cracking from vibration, and either be strong enough or flexible enough to take being roll over. Snowmobiles weigh right around 650 lb wet.
Thanks ahead of time,
Jeremy
if you are looking for the lightest hood you would want to use epoxy resins and all carbon fiber. I have made one that was painted for a tester product and I think it came out around 3lbs and it was 4 layers of carbon fiber and System 3 epoxy resin
You would want to use epoxy. If you are in the upper Midwest a good
place to go would be http://www.expresscomposites.com/
They are happy to supply to any size customer.
Good Luck
Jim
The hybrid carbon fiber/kevlar would be a better choice. Carbon fiber really doesn’t handle big impacts as well as kevlar. CF tends to shatter on impact. Kevlar will hold together buy delaminate.
That is one bada$$ paintjob 
I made a hood for an old el tigre out of red carbon/kevlar and polyester resin. The hood has held up really well. Try to keep the sled upright 
why wouldn’t you want to use vinyl ester.
It is actually a modified epoxy. Since it uses a mekp to catalyze, everyone thinks it is a polyester derivative and therefore cheap.
If you use the viyl ester and infuse it you will have a great product. I think the carbon kevlar is questionable. I am still not convinced that kevlar wets out and does the same job that carbon does.