painting over carbon fiber sheets???

[newbaa]

I'm wondering if it would be possible to lay down some carbon fiber sheets such as the ones from Anvil (http://www.anvilauto.com/product_detail.php?product=other) and be able to put a clear coat over them without screwing anything up.
I've got some great ideas i would love to do that with, but i don't want to spend the money if it's not gonna work.

at least with the Anvil sheets, they have an adhesive backing. my autobody instructor always told me it's kind of a hit or miss when trying to paint over stickers, whether or not it would make the sticker lift off or it might be just fine...

i think i might paint my motorcycle this winter or something and i'd love to put down some carbon fiber accent stripes on it.

if anyone has any input i'd appreciate it. if not, maybe i'll just have to be the guinea pig. lol

[Alchemist]

Hi Steel,

I've used these CF prepreg sheets (non-adhesive back from TAP Plastics) and glued them to the faces of dashboards I have fabricated. No "real" problem clearcoating over them. You will need to prep the surface just like any other surface.

What I did was use my orbital sander with #400 grit and sand the surface thoroughly. I wiped it down with rubbing alcohol and wipe that off quickly. I mixed up some urethane clear and my first pass was a medium wet coat. This was a "tack" coat and not meant to "saturate" the CF surface. I let this flash for about 15 minutes. My next pass was a wet coat - letting this flash another 15 minutes. I applied 2 more wet coats and I was done applying clearcoat. I waited about a week (painted it on a weekend and the following weekend went to work on it) to ensure complete cure. The temp was in the low 60's at that time which is why I waited that long.

What I noticed with the clear coat is that there were "dimples" in the clear where the weave of the CF interlaced. This isn't a problem because I had applied enough clearcoat to allow for removal by blocksanding. I then came back with my orbital sander using #800 grit (3M's Trizact) DA paper without the soft interface pad and basically "blocksanded" the dimples flat. I followed up with a quick buzz over with #100 grit and finally #1500 grit paper. I pulled out my mini air buffer and used 3M's Perfect IT II rubbing compound and finished up with 3M's foam polishing liquid. Turned out very nice!

Hope this helps!

Alchemist

[ks71z28]

The thickness is going to be an issue, this isn't a sticker, and it is a lot more rigid. I work a lot with carbon fiber. i recently overlayed a helmet and masked off areas and painted it, it now has tribal stripes in carbon fiber, looks way cool

Keith

[newbaa]

Alchemist... thank you, yes that does help. nice to know it can be done without it lifting.

71z - i thought about that, but at least according to that website it's only .008 inches thick, so i didn't think that was too bad. maybe just a few extra layers of clear coat so that i can block sand it like alchemist said. it does say it has adhesive backing though, so that's why i was comparing it to a sticker.
got any pictures of the helmet??? i'd love to see it. sounds awesome.

[newbaa]

anyone else got any opinions on this or information if you've actually done this???

[pobby_11]

one thing you can do is tape of you're own designs and actually paint on the carbon fiber its really easy to do with just some cheap cabinet liner a little black some silver you can even through a little color in there. If you jump on you tube and do a search for painting carbon fiber there are a few step by steps on there that'll help you out. Then you don't have to worry about getting rid of a thick build line when you cut and buff