Carbon Fiber Bodywork

I've experimented with some colored fabric in the past. It was black carbon with colored kevlar. Very expensive stuff. Looked similar to your results. The big problem was that the color gets much darker when u put the resin on. So the orange fabric turned out almost dark red, bright green or blue became so dark that it was almost black. I'd like to find a way to make this look but with bright colors that I can set just so. I think you may be onto it!

The resin and resin tint I buy from a local FRP supply business. They are very convenient and have damn good pricing. The hybrid cloth I had gotten from an online supplier, USComposites I believe. I know that without the resin tint, the kevlar cloth shows up very bright and unclouded:


So I wonder if the resin you were using had color? Most polyester resins have quite a bit of color, unless you buy a water clear polyester surfboard resin. I am using a water clear epoxy resin with very good clarity.

nope, it was super clear epoxy resin. the effect was similar to getting a T-shirt wet. it just makes everything darker. I did try a polyester resin and that was much worse - muddy yellow yuck. thanks for the info

Ok the sidepanel pic sparked another question Did you find a way to trim it without having a fuzzy edge? It's easy with CF, but the kevlar seems to always have a fuzzy edge. Sanding helps, but not enough.

No, I have not yet found a way to cleanly cut the aramid cloth after encasing in resin. I haven't given it much thought until recently either, but I haven't done any more research into the matter. I'll need to figure something out so that I can cut these panels out for testarossa and mtbspeedfreak :whistle:

That side cover looks so cool! You're not able to mold-in the mounting tabs, are you? Will these be bolted onto the frame?

Love the colors, btw! Coolest clip board ever. Green with a Kawasaki logo would be sweet!

Not as of yet The dimensions of the actual push in posts prohibit making them out of fiber reinforced plastic like the rest of the panel, and the tabs wold have to be added as a secondary bonding. Yes, they will be bolted to the frame. I still need to figure out what kind of 1/4 turn fasteners I want to hold my sidecovers on and get a handful ordered. I'm glad the colors turned out ok too. Testarossa will have one of the coolest clipboards on the planet

79MKII wrote: That side cover looks so cool! You're not able to mold-in the mounting tabs, are you? Will these be bolted onto the frame?

Love the colors, btw! Coolest clip board ever. Green with a Kawasaki logo would be sweet!

So the other day I ordered some candy pearl powder to try on the carbon pieces I have. The powder is designed to be mixed into an intercoat clear (basically a clear basecoat matrix) or mixed into the clearcoat. I have never painted with candy before, but it is designed to be sprayed over a black base so the carbon background should be perfect! I ordered Wine Red, Lime Green and Bronze Copper. From what I understand, if you only spray a few coats, you can still see the base color underneath. I had emailed a pic to the companies sales staff of that fender Leon posted, and they said no problem, their candy powder would do the trick :woohoo: Here's to hoping!

Can't wait to see it!

My candy powder showed up today :woohoo: Its sooooo colorful!


I got copper bronze on the left, lime green in the middle and Rose red on the right. It looks kinda pinkish in the bag, so I might need one of the wine reds. We'll see. Here is the lime green that also had some gold pearl sprayed over it:


I am hoping that since these candy's are made to be sprayed over a black basecoat, I should be able to get some good color before I completely cover the base color. I have been working on prepping the tail mold, and making a template for the piece of coremat I want to use. Now all I need to do is cut out the fabric and put the layup together. Maybe I should do it tonight......

leon