smooth carbon fiber finish

[poe21]

I have seen a lot of teams that are capable of creating a very smooth finish on the outside of their intake manifolds. I have no idea how you are achieving this, unless you are laying your molds up on the outside which I think is probably not the case. Wouldn't want the smooth part to be on the outside and the rough part on the inside. Either way, we are planning on vacuum bagging it, and I just wanted to know if you have any tips on how to get that smooth finish on the outside. I know it's not 100% important, but it looks goooooddd.

Thanks,
poe

[poe21]

I have seen a lot of teams that are capable of creating a very smooth finish on the outside of their intake manifolds. I have no idea how you are achieving this, unless you are laying your molds up on the outside which I think is probably not the case. Wouldn't want the smooth part to be on the outside and the rough part on the inside. Either way, we are planning on vacuum bagging it, and I just wanted to know if you have any tips on how to get that smooth finish on the outside. I know it's not 100% important, but it looks goooooddd.

Thanks,
poe

[TorqueWrench]

I know how our team did it and its not something I would recommend. We had our mold on the inside to get a good surface finish where it was important. Someone then decided at 4AM to bondo the plenum on the outside and then wrap a cosmetic layer over the top to "make it look nice". I am sure its not the right way to do it and I don't think it would have been done unless their was resin left from another project, but if you really feel the need to get that shiny finish....

EDIT: Should specify. We were using wet lay up on a plaster mold (I fail at the whole positive/negative thing). Inside surface finish was really good. Outside was a bit lacking because we had run out of vacuum bags. Most of our parts turned out good enough for my liking without an exterior post treatment past a bit of wet sanding at times.

[Kirk Feldkamp]

poe21,

What material are you using to make your molds, and what kind of surface finish do you finish it to prior to use? Are you doing wet layups or prepreg? There are a lot of teams on here that will swear by resin infusions too. There are some *sweet* looking FSAE parts as a result of that process.

-Kirk

[Brian S]

Wet sand and rattle can clear coat

[Fred G]

+1

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Brian S:
Wet sand and rattle can clear coat </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

[poe21]

wet sand and rattle can clear coat ayyyy! Hmmm that sounds too easy. Got any pictures of a finished product? Sorry I'm askin a lot I guess.

[Brian S]

We just did the restrictor, not the whole intake, but here you go...

http://sae.wsu.edu/media/0708c.../images/IMG_3301.jpg (http://sae.wsu.edu/media/0708car/08-03-10/images/IMG_3301.jpg)

The mold and layup pictures are scattered around here, along with some nice Pullman sunsets...

http://sae.wsu.edu/media/0708car/08-03-10/

[Rotary Sprocket]

Just make sure that you sand the entire surface evenly when wet sanding. If you happen to miss a spot the clear coat won't stick.

It will take alot of time but that method has worked for me on my composite parts.

[poe21]

Thanks sprocket. By the way, I met one of your team members on the MR2 forum. Hope to meet y'all next year. Thought you had a pretty nice car.