Alright, first i would like to say after a year of searching the internet for tutorials, this site is the shit, thanks Evan and all the others that make it the best CF website to date!
I feel like my fiberglass skills are up to par (4-5 years of experience) , but I have not ventured into Carbon Fiber yet. My questions are how would i go about doing something like this in carbon fiber? I have used bulldog adhesive on plastic to do fiberglass work, and others have suggested that this method would work with carbon fiber too. Can you give me some pointers on how to get started doing CF projects like this for myself (not interested in anytype of mass production or profit). Evan this is Ben’s Car from Rogue Engineer, they stopped making this CF stuff last year some time for some reason, but I want to do something similar with CF door inserts were the red cloth is too.
can’t figure out why the image is not posting but here is the hosted picture.
They probably figured out the harsh reality of resin not adhering permanently to plastic, especially ABS which makes up 99% of all the plastic materials found in BMW’s. It doesn’t really matter what you use to promote the adhesion, bulldog… etc., the end result is the same. Resin just don’t bond to plastic. It’s not the fiberglass or carbon fiber, it’s the resin.
I actually have the molds for most of those pieces in the picture. I make complete replacement pieces using the molds instead of covering the plastic OEM parts with carbon fiber.
What would you suggest for the door panels? Can I layer CF over the cloth if I coat it with Resin first? Would I need to sand it smooth before I apply the CF?
I like the Center piece with just the top of it carbon fiber not the entire thing CF.
Do you have the molds for the seatbacks too? Vader Seatbacks?
Last year I made a complete replacement door panels for the E36 coupe. I wouldn’t lay the carbon over the cloth like that. If you have time, take the door panel out and study it a little bit. Find the best solution before rushing into it.
I have molds for the seat backs for the vaders as well as sports seats. They use the same seatback. I have the molds for the vaders head rest as well. I made the mold a while back but don’t have time to make any to sell.
most forums don’t post bmp format pictures. Here is your picture for you. I have seen some of Evan’s molds for the bimmer stuff and they are top notch.
Well the reason for posting is because i have looked at these for the past 5 years I have not come up with the best solution yet. Why would you not resin the OEM cloth to get a good base to layer up CF on? The panels are solid 1 piece without a good edge. I figured that if I resin the Cloth I will get a good solid start. My biges question is how smooth will the surface have to be. I guess I could always make a negative mold with plaster, right?
Are you just talking about the red section of the door panel or the entire door panel?
Just red Evan, I want to replace the red fabric with CF.
update on project
I have cut the red section out with an Air saw, and fiberglassed the back and front to make it stiff. I had to fill in with bondo to get the new edge to overlap the old edge to keep it from raising up.
I will do a wet lay up with carbon fiber.
Any tutorials on this wet lay up method?
I was going to say make a flat sheet of carbon using a big piece of glass or something. That way it comes out nice and smooth. Then cut the plate to size and put it over the red carpet section. But seems like you’ve already gone ahead started on it. I think there’s a tutorial on wet layup somewhere in the Articles Forums.
Evan i took pictures at the shop today of the entire process. I would like to share them, how do i post them?
You can upload the pictures when you post. Look below the posting window and you’ll see a section that says " Add an attachment"
1original panel
door panel is one piece in BMW 318ti so you can not seperate like the other e36 cars. Therefore i had to cut out the original cloth piece
I just used an air saw and cut along the vinyl so i could try and hold down the original piece with the new part. After the cut out I taped the original and bondo’d the gaps and made the new piece overlap that vinyl seam
Here is the door panel with the cloth piece cut out. Befoe I cut this out, i layered fiberglass up from the back side, 2 coats of random weave to make it stiff. I then masked it off, and taped it back in to fill the gaps with fiberglass filer.
This step was with the piece back in, post fiberglass, so I could match the new piece to the panel and fill in gaps and make the new lip over lap that damn seam to keep it from comming up
here is the new piece with a fiberglass pod to hold 4 inch mids and tweets. I really tried to follow the original lines as not to make it stand out too much and look as OEM as possible
next step is to wet layer carbon fiber? Any suggestions are welcome 