How would I best make a carbon fiber part such as that of my car?
Here’s my understanding:
Grab some carbon fiber sheets and epoxy resin, dunk the carbon fiber in epoxy resin, then apply it on the part with multiple layers making sure there are no air bubbles, then putting it in some kind of heat source to help it cure for some hours. Then remove the part(a bumper for example) from the carbon fiber, and then it’s made?
Hopefully some people with experience could help to improve my understanding of it, as I see as somewhat like paper mache.
For example, can I use the OEM bumper of a car and then use it as a male mold for the carbon fiber to be placed upon?
Male is when the mold goes outward while female goes inward respectively.
Male type: CB —> ( ( <— mold
Female type: Mold —>( ( <—CB
Well…it’s like papier mache, if you had to bake it in an autoclave (a pressurised oven, basically). Making carbon parts with prepreg - carbon fibre fabric with the uncured resin doped into the fabric - is beyond the capabilities of most DIYers, beyond very small parts that is.
There are other, easier methods of making carbon fibre parts, but they lose a lot of their advantages in doing so.
Yep if you’re making it for the look, laminated layering works even with fiberglass. If you are making a part to benefit from CF’s material advantages, pre-preg, vacuum seal and baking is the way. There’s also the chop and form method starting to become popular, Lamborghini with the Sesto Elemento started that one.
Like so what im saying has some truth to it and that all I would need to do is do basically get an autoclave and also some pre-preg?
Like I want to see if this would be easier(more beneficial) than just buying body pannels off of a website.
So I have seen some tutorials of which I would need a mold, sheets of carbon fiber, some kind of rounded flat tool such as a squeegee, some of the pre-preg as mentioned in your response, and while trying o put this thing inside a bag that gets vaccum sealed.
Plus I know that heat is in the equation but im not sure how especially once in a bag.
Would love to have a full discussion with you soon : )
“get an autoclave…” ok with that kind of money might as well get whatever you want, hell get two. But if you had that kind of money you would know darn well not to ask on a random forum what to do.
Listen, making parts out of fiberglass is nightmare enough. Ive done it and I really would happily never touch fiberglass again in my life and I’d be ok with that. Carbon fiber is a whole nother beast. To make molds, you first need a reverse mold of the part. Simply laying material over a shape does not make the shape, it makes a shell of it. You then have to make a mold, and then you make your shape from that mold. Each mold is major effort, I did it with fiberglass subwoofer enclosures that I used to do as a side gig.
There’s plenty of YouTube videos on the process and the parts and materials. The tools alone make it cost-prohibitive to do for most diy-ers, unless scaling for production. A channel recently went through the whole process just for an rc Harrier plane design, and while intriguing, it would be massive effort and expense. And that guy already had a composite materials shop in operation.
Personally I think the future is AI-aided 3d metal forming.
Thank you, my van with the crew wearing ski-masks is enroute to my destination to the bank. Wish me luck 
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