Just thought I would share some photos from the shop. These are a few of our molds for our carbon fiber MacBook and iPad cases.
I see in the last one that it can be fold between the 2 parts covers. Do you use flexible resin?
I think what your seeing there is not CF , rather a CF Di-noc vinyl or other CF faux material to cover the hinge points.
That is a good looking case guys !
No, it is actual carbon fiber. I was just playing around with the look and decided to take a picture. Not very functional like that, but the look is cool. I am open to suggestions on how to make it work. I wanted to try and bring an element of raw carbon fiber to the interior. The fabric covering the padding is Alcantara, which is another awesome material.
In that case, as I mentioned …look for 3M Dinoc material or similar vinyl faux CF cloths. They are flexible and would probably handle the flexing well. Many shades available.
I’d be interested in seeing an image of the backside of your moisture cured silicone vac-bag manifolding. Looks as if you’ve got a good perimeter seal and a dedicated mold seal design there ! I’m designing a set of two for a pair of 5’x5’ sized molds now.
why do you use a silicone vac-bag and not a fiberglass rtml mold?
We could do with a rtm mold . We had made some parts to run a demo on some silicone bags we were trying and it went so well we are now making them for all our other parts.
I will try and get some shots up for you.
if you want a flexible carbon for the hinges look here and contact Alain…
http://www.prc.it/pag/carbonwear-en.html
thanks mIIIc. Silicone bag is interesting, I’ve never used it. It’s necessary a flow mat under the silicone, I suppose
You can make a flexible carbon hinge with flexible epoxy resin. Just adjust the resin ratio for epoxy using less than the normal hardener so that it is under cured. Make some tests.
I have done this with 100’s of hinges on a small flapped wing we make except that we use Kevlar.
This. A flexible resin, and even a toughened epoxy, you can have a hinge with CF, and one-two layers. I used Cytec’s 977-2 resin with a plain weave. One layer, and it easily wrapped around a pen with no issues!
And how did you put the zip? is it glued to the CF?
What glue are you using?
I have a customer who uses aramide and flexible epoxy resin to make masts. The whole mould is flexible, and can be folded open to facilitate prepreg placement.
Just keep in mind that flexible resin has a very low Tg (below room temperature)
Hey mIIIc , how did you seal on the edges your silicone bag?
The silicon is hardest than vac bag and once you make vacuum automaticaly is sealed itself.
Even if you stop the vacum pump?
This in itself was a long testing process. The challenge is that it is very hard to simulate normal wear and stress. My biggest concern was the corners. I figured if the zipper was going to stress over time, it would be on the corners. Another problem was that many of the industrial glues also carried a very toxic odor and they were extremely challenging to apply and not get any on the zipper above the glue line. We use extreme care every step of the way (nobody wants to spend $250 on a carbon fiber MacBook case and then get it with glue on it). Sorry I am not directly answering your question but I kinda guard this as a trade secret. It was as I mentioned earlier a very long evolving process to get it just right. If you are trying to build something specific I will be glad to discuss some of our lessons learned during this process and provide assistance where I can. You cam also e-mail me kevin@mach3composites.com
Correct, It sits over the mold live a heavy rubber mat. The bag is a perfect form fit for the mold.