Hey all, new to the forum, and anxiously awaiting a few books on CF construction. I’ve got experience with fibreglass and CF construction of non-structural parts, due to racing motorcycles and crashing the odd time. I am interested in my first structural CF project, that being a monocoque seat subframe. I understand Durbahn made some using wet lay up… and being in the middle of Canada, not too many small scale CF shops around that I am aware of which could help. I would like to make a fibreglass male mold of the seat, fabricate a female mold (2-part) out of glass, pull it, and then use it to make a cf seat subframe. Obviously this mold wouldn’t last in an oven… would wet lay and vacuum bagging, using some proper alignment techniques, suffice with the correct needed strength?
That style of mold would be fine in the oven so long as you use epoxy that is rated for the temperature, and probably you’d have to either oven cure it or at least post cure it. There are also lower temp pre-pregs available in the 180-250 degree range.
Vacuum bagging is fine. Great in fact. You can make some wonderfully strong parts with vacuum, like airplanes and rockets. It’s more of a matter of good technique in your process and good part design. I think you might want to do some smaller scale testing to figure out more questions and answer others.
I’m doing the same thing, making a one piece tank(cover)/seat/tail for my 98 R1. I’ve left a wee bit of the alloy subframe to support my weight, so I’m kind of cheating but the process should be the same. I have the plug nearly finished just trying to figure out the best way to split the mold lines, I’ll probably end up with a 5-7 piece mold in the end. I’m hoping to get the total weight of the machine down to around 325lbs. I’ll post up when I’m further along with the project, please do the same.
Hey, here’s my blog… I made a carbon tank filler/cover/shroud, and did some laminate work on my bellypan. I bought the R6 seat, but the long-term plan is to come up with a self-supporting unit and get rid of another 10 lbs of mild steel tubing!
www.mbducati.blogspot.ca