Need some advice on lamination

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#1

I’d like to make composite plate with carbon fiber on the outside layers. It’s a cosmetic piece only so strength or even consistent fiber direction is not important. It needs to be 5mm thick to accommodate countersunk screws. Low cost is important.

For my first attempt at this, I used fiberglass in every layer but the top and bottom. The problem is, looking at a cross section, you can see the white glass layers. The edges of the piece are exposed and the white glass layers don’t look good to me.

So, I’m thinking I have to do this thing in 100% carbon fiber. If I use two cosmetic layers of 3k twill on the outsides, what’s the cheapest way to fill the non-exposed plies? I thought about using the heaviest weight CF cloth I could find (19 oz.) but even that gets expensive.

Ideas?

#2

Just add black dye to your resin or paint the sides. A more complex way is to make a boarder of carbon round the glass, that way the edges will be carbon while the centre glass.

#3

Indeed, toss some black pigment in the resin. (except for the first and last layer)

#4

It’s a vacuum infusion so there’s no way to restrict the resin to any specific layers. I’ll do a test piece with dyed resin.

Thanks for the input.

#5

Black fibreglass, black Diolen or basalt?

If you want dirt cheap, you could wetlay CSM with black polyester then use that as a core between 2 carbon layers.

You could also just do it as you did, then die the edges with a lacquer thats been really thinned down and heavily pigmented.

#6

They sell Black Fiberglass with the same 2 x 2 twill pattern as carbon fiber. that will solve your porblem