a few Carbon Fiber questions guys

ok, so i'm not to bad with the fiberglassing thing, and i have read about cf, i know all the resins you have to use, and stuff like that..... my question is that when you see carbon fiber, it looks like it has some depth in the texture.. is this effect acheived with only one layer of mat? and what kind of tricks are there to maintaining a steady texture without having seams show up especially on complicated designs with many curves? that's the only think i've really wondered about, i figure on something like the hood of a car that people just use one really big matt, but for dashes and what not... i'm not sure, cause there isn't a way that i can figure to get one mat to curve like you would need it to curve to not have to cut it and get seams, anyways, write me, haha

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Bad Boys Customs
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If you use it. Suport it. Donate to the 12 volt!

CF is very hard and very expensive. the only way i know to learn to do it is (A) have deep pockets for trial and error or (B) apprentice with a pro. good luck bro.

yea, i was just going to f**k around, do some of my dash stuff, i know it's costly, but i'm willing to waste a little money just to learn sh*t, encase i would ever have to do it, but i'm not going to waste tons and tons trying to be an expert at it, i don't think it would be too hard to do small flat stuff, but i didn't know about coating sh*t like dash panels or things like that, haha

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Bad Boys Customs
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If you use it. Suport it. Donate to the 12 volt!

haha thank god it censors me, i might curse a little to much, haha, but yea, thanks for your help guys, i might buy some just to f**k around, but i don't think i'll really try to get into it that much, has any of you guys done any big sh*t with C F?

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Bad Boys Customs
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If you use it. Suport it. Donate to the 12 volt!

You'd be surprised how well CF will lay around curves and bends, but a lot of it has to do with the weave you use. Two of the most common weaves are the plain weave and twill weave. The plain works well for flat panels and doesn't wrap around things easily. Twill weave on the other hand easily molds around contours because the way the fibers are woven allow it to move easier. I made a carbon fiber overlay of the dash in my Talon with a twill weave. Here are a couple of pics::

And one of the finished dash in the car::

Hmmm, not sure why that didn't work, I'll try this one

that's cool, that looks really good man, i might try it, the only cf place i know of is select, i can get clear resin anywere, do you know of any other places to get the mat or is select my best bet there?

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Bad Boys Customs
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If you use it. Suport it. Donate to the 12 volt!

www.fibreglast.com they sell all the CF stuff you'll need at I'd say fairly good prices.

If your going to do anything big you need to learn about a technique called vacuum bagging it's how you can get those pieces so smooth and not have to sand and ruin your CF look.

can you tell me anything about that process? does it involve expensive equipment, i'm at a shop, but we don't really focus much on the fab stuff, so i don't really have a budget for equip..  or is there a site that i can look at to learn more about the process? thanks for all your help so far

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Bad Boys Customs
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If you use it. Suport it. Donate to the 12 volt!

also, what is the difference between kevlar hybrids? i know the kevlar is suposed to have a lot more strength, but is it a lot harder to lay also? and the main reason i'm curious about this is because the kevlar is the only colored cf i have found, would it be just as easy to dye the clear resen? any recomendations here? and i looked up vacuming, it doesnt look THAT complicated, it basically says on that site you posted that the vacuming is just to get rid of excess resin, would that make it perfectly smooth for sure? sorry to ask so many questions, i'm just trying to not go into this blind. thanks for your hel

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Bad Boys Customs
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If you use it. Suport it. Donate to the 12 volt!

What you're saying isn't completely true. There are about three useful techniques that can be used to lay CF, all of which when done correctly will give you an absolutely beautiful piece of work. As a matter of fact, it's more about the finishing process that gives it the look.

The dash overlay I did was simply an overlay, no vacuuming involved. Overlays work very well and give you a nice result. The glass method mentioned earlier works awesome for flat strutcural panels. The thing vacuum bagging does better is that it makes your part as light as possible. Say you use 5oz of mat, the vacuum squeezes out all the excess resin you may have used so that the final piece only has a max of 5oz of resin. And actually when released from the mold it actually comes out looking like raw CF and would need to be gel coated for that deeper, glossy look. It really just comes down to what your after, looks, lightweight, functionality, etc to choose the right method. You also need to consider cost in the matter. Overlays are cheap because all you need is resin and mat. Vacuuming gets spendy because you need the pump, molds of all your parts, vacuum bags, filler material, the "sponge" material that soaks the resin, and the list goes on. Hope that helps put it in a little more perspective.

I was trying to quote dowace in that last post, sorry.