Ok I have a 1972 datsun 240z and I have been trying to wrap the dash with some yellow hybrid carbon fiber but I don’t know if the fabric I was using was the right kind. See the dash has a few contours on it and the fabric was just not staying in place even with adhesive. Any help would help a lot I’ve already gone through about 4 yards of this stuff trying to figure it out.
If I read your post right it sounds like you are doing a overlay and your using spray adhesive to hold the fabric on before you apply resin? In that case your fabric wont stay in place because you need to apply the resin first let it turn to a tacky state then apply your fabric and more resin and so forth.
Ok would infusion be a better way to do this or is overlay the best way
It depends on what your goal is and how much money you want to spend. Is this for cosmetic or weight reduction? If cosmetic is your goal a overlay would probably be your most economical option. Or if weight reduction is your goal you would want to make a mould of the dash and you could infuse dry material or vac bag prepreg for the most hardcore option.
I’m an hour north from you. I would use a thin coat of epoxy adhesive to bond to the dash surface. Then saturate with a ve or uv stable epoxy generously. Block sand and clear coat.
Is your dash cracked? If so it will need to be bondo’d… Then things get easier.
Ya it’s cracked but I’ve already filled the cracks and blocked it all down. Ya it’s simply cosmetic. Dallas where abouts are you from being a hour north of me?
I think he missed you as being the OP .
You may want to consider doing a wet lamination layer followed by just a large Envelope vacuum bag to pull the fabric tight til your resin kicks ?
A Vacuum pump is of course required to do this.
I have a whole vacuum bagging set up I’m just looking for the easiest way to do this.
What the hell is “op”
Everyone is. OP is an acronym for Original Poster.
An Envelope bag is indeed what you have ? If so, your set to do your overlay if you can work quickly and efficiently.
This is what I’d do. Brush on what ever resin you are using over your part. Once its in, “B” stage, (tacky to the touch but does not transfer onto your fingers) then apply the fabric. Then bag it. Once that resin is dry, the fabric is locked in. You can then apply more resin.
I never thought of doing it that way, after the resin is tacky to lay on the fabric and bag it to lock the fabric in place then after it’s cured to lay on more resin. I shall try this out and post pics thanks
Op= original poster. Forum lingo. I don’t think vacuum bagging is the way to go at all. In fact by the time you spend buying bagging materials and take a swing with a few more yards of fabric and a he’ll of a lot of work your probably gonna end up with a hundred dollar nightmare. Best thing to do is if it already blocked and smoothed is to go ahead and bond the fabric to the dash. I would apply a liberal amount of adhesive like a quick cure epoxy or even a 3m scotch grip scotch weld (monkey snot) to the surface of the dash. Work the fabric down nicely and trim it tight. Once you have the fabric glued then you can saturate it with resin of your choice. Giving time for the glue to cure of course.
At this point you could apply peel ply and perf with a bleeder and bag it and not wreck the piece. The surface can be gel coated and polished. With experience this would be preferred.
For a beginner you’d probably want to wet out the fabric block sand wet out block and clear coat.
Using uv stable resins of course.
If you have all the materials. Peel ply bleeder and perforated film with bagging I would not mind walking you through it. Assuming you have steaks grille and plenty of hieneken.
Hit me up if you need help
Ok as soon as I get the hybrid carbon in the mail I’ll most likely do that
And keep this tread up to date, I would like to see where this goes!
I would scuff the console really well with 80 grit paper you need deep scratches in order the resin to stick mechanically onto the dash. As soon as the resin glue is b-staged you apply the fabric, (as we say you only get one chance here to do it right). You then let it dry. And after few hours you add the follwing layers of resin. Bagging it is a nice way to keep the fabric in place but if you’re not familiar be carefull not to “crash” the dash.
Really important - Make sure the resin you’re using has the highest possible tg (high temperature) otherwise you may face issues with temperature under the summer sun.
This was my first ever carbon project few years before
Should I cover the entire dash with body filler and block it down or is it ok to just fill cracks and then scuff the dash really well. Just worried about adhesive problems on the two surfaces
There is no benefit to covering the whole surface with bodyfiller. Concentrate on sanding the whole surface for a good mechanical bond. One word of caution though…if those cracks are strong enough to widen later…they could make some obvious ugly spots in your CF.