Hand built in Wisconsin! 
[ame=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrtpNQLxqfg”]Made In America: Trek - YouTube[/ame]
up to 2000 bikes a week! :eek:
So is anyone on here recycling their carbon?
Alittle info on carbon recycling incase you didn’t see it already…
http://www.viddler.com/explore/SAMPECarolinas/videos/2/
Which was already posted in post #3 here. http://www.compositescentral.com/showthread.php?t=6566
I do the quality control for a prepreg line that makes the carbon fiber “tape” you see them using, it’s the stuff with the white writing on it during the first part of the video. So bad ass!
What does that entail? Thickness, resin content, etc? Do you check to see if the resin itself is kosher and consistent?
^ What he said.
How is the white lettering placed on the carbon, laser? I assume it has no effect on the material?
Rotorage great video! I have already seen it like hundred times to pick as much details on carbon frame manufacturing as I can 
.
Also great video about composites recycling. With composite industry growing extremly fast it can be serious problem one day. But I still dont understand how safe is ,burning, that resin away. It must produce lot of dangerous gases. I cant just dissapear.
@Rotorage: those are wet slide-off decals. You can see water dripping off as they are applied in one scene of that film.
I don’t recycle but I repair damaged frames. I currently have a vintage Y11 Trek frame with the headtube ripped off. It will look and ride like new when I’m finished so no need to recycle
Vintage? i remember the Y series when they came out. Jeesh i feel old!
They used to make a horrible sound when rocks hit them.
I would love to see before and after pictures of that repair if possible. Sounds interesting.
When we are talking about composite frames repairs, I made also several frame repairs (about 6 frames). Some of the road frames are really extremly fragile. I also had one Trek Madone for a repair (bike accident). I must say thay have really high quality laminate. I had one cheap china frame for repair. No accident, just worst layup I have ever seen. Extreme wrinkles (waves) at joints and frame cracking there.
Do anybody remember Scott Endorphine carbon frame?
Yup saw a few of those with a snapped rear end:eek:
Hey Datas_br I actually ment the white lettering on the raw carbon uni which can been seen at 0:04 and 0:40 because Mountainman said he does the QC for the prepreg line that makes the prepreg in the video.
Yes, we do all those tests, Resin content and fiber area weight. Obviously for proprietary reasons I can’t describe in detail what happens.
White ink is rolled on during the final process, it does not hurt the integrity of the product at all and is approved for use.
As for the actual heated tack resin. The material is plied and placed in a complex die tool that is heated and we try to distort it and purposely get the material to slide around on top of itself to much. If the resin has a problem it will show here.
I don’t do the QC testing any longer, I now simply watch the machine run the final product and say it looks good or looks like garbage.
Yeah, I have two frames. Both had cracking rear ends. I repaired both.
I’ll post some as soon as I get a chance. It may take awhile since I just moved into my new shop and things aren’t running at 100 %. I need to get my backlog down.
BTW I just passed my 100th repair for 2011!
here’s a before picture:
Here’s an instance where the Dyna-brade Dynafile comes in real handy for prep.
That’s like surgery with a baseball bat. You can’t pull 0.15mm thick layers off one at a time with that. I use a special Dremel bit similar to scotch brite for to ruff stuff. The rest is done by hand.
Perhaps if one is hamfisted, :). I have an array of their scotchbrite belts and grit belts. The finesse is all up to the individual . It is one of my most commonly reached for tools. Not to mention it has an awesome reach for inner tunnel work such this.
You weren’t kidding that the head tube was ripped off. That seems like an unusual place to break, did you get the story on how it happened? Or did you get the typical “I was just ridding along” excuse?
The headtube is the highest stress area of a bike frame of this style. Its constantly wanting to split from the frame with the leverage from the forks. Its split a couple of inches back where its thinest after the extra reinforcement holding the headtube.