what kind of diameter can you achieve with the tire tube?
depends what size tubes you get, at out local bike outlet they have them as big as 5 inchs in diameter
…or a car tire shop…ougie’s condom size? :roll:
Thanks Jim… Were you peeking again?
Seriously if you have ever blown up a innertube ouside of the tire and rim, it will expand much larger than you need.
I have had the tube outside the mold expand beyond the edge of the tool. I will also say you don’t need much pressure to press the sides out. i never put too much pressure into the tube. I worry about wearing a pair of vise grips as it blasts open.
Wow, why is this technique no used more often? I didn’t know bike tire tubes go up to 5 inches.
Here is a newbie question (bare with me). In order to make the CF pipes I would first need to mock them up in metal. Once that is done I could make a mold of the piping, which I am assuming would be a two piece mold. Once that is done buy some tire tubing, slide a CF sleeve over the tubing, add the resin then pump her up to push the CF sleeve against the mold. Sound about right??
Another newbie question (I know FNG :lol: ). How would I got about making the mold? What materials? I have read the mold must be polished with a buffer but, that would be near impossible with this tpe of mold. What type of CF weaving would be best?
These questions need much more reading through the stacks of info before you would even begin to understand.
Take the time to re read all the earlier questions. it appears that you jumped into a thread that interests you and want to be educated. We have all put way too much time on these forums to take the time to educate you without you doing some reading first…
I hope I don’t appear to be upset. I just know that we can’t answer this in a short timeframe judging from your question and how it was understood from the previous posts.
there are only 6 pages of posts,would take you an hour or so to read,thats wat i did 
its pretty much all in there…
check out this piping!
what kind of release agent would you use on the bike tire? obviously can’t use pva… just lots and lots of wax? or will te cured resin not stick to the rubber?
I use a spray mold release and spray it on while the tire is inflated, and wipe it down real good. Then I deflate the tube and leave it alone til ready to use. Keep it stored in a clean plastic bag.
I have also wrapped it in saran wrap.
those are some F’ing nice works of art. I’d love to see how the molds fit together on that one.
wouldnt the glad wrap (saran wrap) leave a wrinkled finish on the inside of the pipe??
Ive been thinking about gettin pvc pipe then coating it with release agent and wraping the cf cloth tightly around that (there were some guys on fibreglast doing it for mountain bikes, they were using foam cores and wrapping the cf and wetting it down) then bag it so its nice and uniform and strong…then using the cf sleeve for the outer ‘eye candy’ …
Of course this is only good for straight pieces of pipe…if it even works lol
You can get bends in PVC piping just like what use do with thin gage steel tubing in race car fabbing:
plug one end of the pipe, pack the pipe with sand, heat (do not over heat OVC as it will give off toxic fumes) in the area you need the bend 360 degree around, find a telephone pole with a buddy or fence or anything with maybe 2x HD tubes and place in between them and bend. The sand inside keeps it from kinking and gives.
I tried to do that and couldn’t get it to work… what are you using to heat with?
What schedule of PVC are you trying with this technique? The thinner the better…
You could use an oven, but an oven only for plastics use, not your kitchen one… :shock:
I will try it with a thinner piece of pipe… iirc the stuff I had was rather thick(didn’t see any other thicknesses at homedepot, but then I wasn’t searching that much)… I was trying to heat it with a heat gun… hit the general area I wanted to bend… don’t have an extra oven laying around
lol…I tried that the other day jus for shits n giggles…
It worked…but it didnt lol…
I was using a heat gun, so tryin to hold everything and get heat around the whole pipe didnt work, it got overheated in some parts in saged and didnt give a uniform bend…
Use help if you have it! The more hands the better lol
BUT it does work!
PS…any comments on my post above?? Would that work you think??
Go to a thrift shop, get a working toster oven and take the back side out for thru oven…
I have a couple laying around my shop to use to heat things from bearings to whatever, but no food goes in them any more!
well, I tried it with the bike tire this week…
and had very little success…
the bike tire, despite me putting several layers of mold release on… didn’t release…
it also didn’t blow up all the way inside the mold, despite on the ends where the bike tire being out, it being at least 2 inches larger than the diameter of the mold…