Carbon fibre race car body work repairs

General Composites Discussions Composites Talk
#21

f1 rob that explains a lot. I did not know of a “easy composites”
All good. Hugh Chamberlian referred me as the DAG Man at LeMans.

the Ferrari team has a skilled composites man at the circuit but he is also the shop foreman and his other skills a better suited when they are home. that’s how I have their account.

You have made a valid point quote " If you make a mistake someone could die" my history began with aircraft and if I made a mistake 300 people could die. I have turned down projects I have not felt comfortable with.

I do not claim to be an expert, I learn every day and attend SAMPE & CMAX conventions to stay informed and glean knowledge when possible. in my early years I learned a lot from Old School craftsman that honed their skills during WWII.
At my level here I am limited to mostly wet layups, I do own a Heatcon 9000 series bond console for prepreg repairs. taken it on the plane to do minor tub repairs.

I work from home in my 400 sq. ft. garage. I am very tight for space with 10 rollaways, mig & tig, the usual bandsaw,& shop equipment. Sometimes I will make a buck from my English wheel.

My main customer base is club racing. I don’t make a lot off those guys but racing is a disease and when a car comes to my shop I own it until it’s given back. I restore at least 1 car a year and do a lot of aero modifications.

When I was 20 I built the engine nacelle, wings, & fairings from fiberglass for this full size mockup, then we built the real thing and I painted all of them



later we built this

I learned structures working with many mentors rebuilding damaged aircraft

My first involvement with a race team was for an airplane at the Mojave Air Races (we won every year)
The first racecar I worked on was a Formula Ford

I miss aircraft and one day my partner in this will have it in it’s new home in Idaho


The Wife and I are volunteers for the SCCA and I will be roaming the course at the Long Beach Grand Prix by then I will have healed 5 broken ribs from my dirt bike

#22

Thanks for all your feedback I think I get the picture f1 rob,I have previously worked with composites 10 years mainly aerospace a few years ago,just to clarify the brief given by myself was from a job advertisement and I’m sure the individual was not an idiot!! It was a very brief basic description but I’m sure there’s quite a bit more to it.

#23

great write up rob! I can confirm that Aerospace and F1 are worlds apart from being in both and that there is a real skill shortage in all round technical skills, as rob pointed out most of the new laminators (myself included) get given a blue block tool to layup on following the plybook, cure it and then hand over to the trimmers.

Ive got a couple of mates running in the Mclaren endurance team this year and I knwo a couple of lads in WEC that do repairs and they are all trimmers that can do layup. The skill is in preparing the damage and then trying to get it back to looking what it was before.

Good luck to the OP its a great job and highly rewarding.

#24

Also have a look at these guys, nice setup

http://www.advancedcompositerepairs.com/

#25

This is a fascinating subject. New production is interesting but repairs really require another skill set. It approaches art and I for one, would love to see more about this. Thanks guys for posting and please don’t hesitate to show more.

#26

the way I did it, in my garage from home

Repair to a Ferrari Challenge splitter.
make tool, repair core, make part from tool, co-bond piece inside vac bag with tool. wet layup

GTD 488 fender

make aluminum skin to fit with English wheel, make tool from skin, fab missing cascades, glue together. to keep the outer surface from being proud I use thin Textreme to tie in the splice
I’m sure there at many different ways to do it. It all gets wrapped in vinyl

this repair was easy compared to a MD-11 tailcone

my customer

#27

How did you get the shape for the fender? I understand you made an aluminum tool but what did you use for that pattern? Great stuff!

#28

my eyeball & English wheel

#29

Copy that! Like I said, more art than science.

#30

sometimes you get the advantage of a replacement section.

a lot is done from scratch






#31

Very nice, that had to be a spendy piece there! Sure do appreciate your posts.

#32

It was the first resin infusion I did. I lurked around this board, learned a lot and went to PTM&W to spend time with their tech rep. we went over the procedure and he calculated how much resin it required.

The car was on podium at the national championship (runoffs) that year.


#33

Have just recently been converting some of my processes over to infusion. I’m finding some benefits and ways to modify my practices to improve production.

Who’s S2 is that? I did a sportsracer project from a clean sheet of paper. Stupid amount of work and got it done in time to sell one customer car right before the economy stopped and they plummeted in value. Brilliant timing but there you go, the vagaries of auto racing.

Definitely enjoy your posts.

#34

I went to see some of my new victim’s
the are replacing the old cars for new 488’s