Questions for anyone who has done carbon skinning

[Jinks]

Hello Prime members,

My side view mirrors are very pitted and I have been seriously considering buying a carbon skinning kit from carbonmods.com to skin them,but I am just unceartain if I am opening a can of worms. I have viewed their videos religiously and it seems somewhat easier to do than I had imagined. Or am I completely wrong? Wouldn't be the first time... It seems as though vacuum bagging and vacuum infusing the parts with resin is the easiest way to a bubble free and flawless part. I have a vacuum pump on hand as I am an hvacr technician.

So, would I be better off vacuum bagging the part? Has anyone done this skinning process to the mirrors? I know Johan has done a lot of carbon skinning on his car. I also would only take on the mirror itself and not the base. Any advice, tips, tricks, insane comments, or off topic comments are welcome.:smile: I'd love some powered carbon spoon mirrors but I do not trust Tamoske enough yet to hand him banking information no matter what people say here. For example, when I try painting things, like models or things of that nature, I am extremely impatient. Would this idea not be worth my while? If I skinned the mirror in carbon and it came out like crap, could the carbon fabric be removed so I can paint the mirrors? Looking forward to anyone's direct input on this topic.

Thanks,
AJ

 

[Stephen@NCAutoUSA]

You need to make sure whatever epoxy you use or resin has a TG and can room cure to that TG of at least I would say 175. Carbon in the sun will pop if wrong materials are used.

Other than that it's a steep learning curve to do correctly but with enough time and effort you can accomplish anything. But that's my best advice is that know the heat distortion temp or TG and make sure that you can room cure or post cure with an make shift oven and ramp up speeds according to the manufacturer.

If you mess up it should be hard to remove if you did your prep correctly. If you did your prep poorly it'll be hard to remove.

 

[Stephen@NCAutoUSA]

And do my forget a degassing chamber you'll also need most likely.

Again a steep learning curve and I would probably recommend if you don't plan on doing this again or much it may be worth your personal time to just get a shop to do it. It shouldn't cost more than 600-800 for just the top portions of mirrors.

 

[tdiggity]

You'll need lots of practice. And even then, it's still really hard to make it all come out well. If you mess up, you'll need to sand everything down (huge PITA). You're probably best off going to a shop that does a lot of skinning or go with a vinyl wrap.


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[cmc140]

I'd look for a place that does carbon fiber water transfer printing.
I've got no experience with it but can't imagine it can cost too much.

 

[Jinks]

I have tried to research shops that do carbon skinning but have had no luck finding any and the ones I did find never emailed me back in weeks. Anyone know of a shop?

 

[nsx711]

It's a lot harder than it looks. It is especially hard to get the weave to look good on a shape like the mirror. I would suggest that you grab a couple similar shape mirrors from the junkyard and some epoxy and fiber to try it yourself. It's fun and might take some of the sting out of writing the check to a professional shop. You never know, maybe you will be one of the few who have the touch for doing that kind of work.

 

[tdiggity]

Here's a place that I've heard good things from: https://www.macarbon.com/index.php?...id=125&Itemid=4&lang=en&redirected=1&Itemid=4


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[Old Guy]

As an experiment, get some wrap or 3M paint protection film and try getting it to conform smoothly to the compound surface of the mirror. That will give you a sense of how much effort / pain it is going to be to get a flat sheet of carbon fiber to conform to the surface of the mirror. Having applied PPF to compound curves, I can advise that impatience will not be your friend and PPF is nowhere near as much effort as wet carbon fiber. The advantage of the wrap / PPF is that it won't be too hard to remove when the results go south on you.

They are your mirrors and you get to do what you want with them. However, if it were me, I would just pull them off and get a paint shop to fix them up.

 

[B2FiNiTY]

Just vinyl wrap them or repaint them and call it a day.

 

[Jinks]

Thanks for everyone's advice. I will sit this one out and not skin....

 

[tdiggity]

Jinks,

Heres a DIY kit you can try: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6rTWaV1imzs

He covers a side mirror as an example, but he makes it look extremely easy to not mess up the weave! I've tried this kit, and it works best on flat pieces without 90 degree bends or cone shapes.


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[JRZ]

I'll be looking into this as well. My final goal is to cf wrap the mirrors and top and have a smoke clear like the NSX-R spoiler so the CF is only visible when you are standing near. Maybe we can brainstorm this for a spring project. See you when I get to Cali.