Carbon Fiber thickness for gauges...
 

I'm trying to decide on what thickness i will need for my gauge panel... 2mm, 3mm? The price jumps quite a bit just going 2-3 on eBay...

Any suggestions would be great. Pic below of panel.


http://s1057.beta.photobucket.com/us...G0192.jpg.html

Even the 3mm is going to be pretty flimsy once you mount the gauges in it. That is less than 1/3". We actually lay up our own carbon fiber sheets. We use them for a multitude of things from dash boards to electronics plates to mount on an engine, to mounting plates for coils, etc. We need the carbon to be pretty strong. It's costs a fortune to lay up just carbon thick enough. We lay 2-3 layers of carbon and then build up multiple layers of fiberglass to get the strength and bulk. We make some of them as thick as 3/8", or more.
What I'm getting at is that you can just buy the 2mm and lay some fiberglass on the backside to build up some bulk and strength. This will get you the cheaper carbon, yet still have the strength of a thicker piece without the high cost.
Eddie

+1. The strength and stiffness are dominated by the outer layers, so what's in the core isn't so important, as long as it is bonded well and it doesn't fall apart.

While 1/8" aluminum works great for guage panels, the composites have a much lower modulus of elasticity (anywhere from like 1.6x10^6 to 3x10^6 for carbons, and depending on layup and direction, while aluminum is 10x10^6). So, while the composite has a lot of ultimate strength, it will be lacking stiffness at the same thickness.

Gotcha... Ill just wait til next year for the dash then... Still doing the interior upholstery and its costing enough $$$. Thanks for the responses.

Another option might be to lay the CF sheets over your existing panel or a new panel made out of plexi. if you sandwich it with a high quality adhesive you should be good to go. It would update the look on a budget for sure.

Thats a fantastic idea! Ill do some searching on ebay. Thanks!

What thickness would be good for some plexi? 1/32, 1/4?

Eddie,

What type of resin are you using to bond/laminate the fiberglass to the CF?
Do you prep(sand/roughen) the CF surface to get a better bond/lamination?
Are you using some type of lamination press or just laying the fiberglass down , wetting it with the resin and then rolling out the air bubbles and do you use any type of weights in the fiberglass to help improve the bond/lamination?
what you finish with is a CF veneer

Thank you
Jim

I think it depends on the dash and what you can get away with. Yours has bends in it? Do you plan on changing it to 3 pieces?

I got plexi from home depot and 'felt it out' to pick the thickness. I didn't want it so think it looked dumb so I ended up with pretty thin stuff that was rigid. I then had it painted when my boat was painted. I imagine that thinner stuff with carbon fiber glued to it would be pretty rigid.

There are other options too... Aluminum sheeting, etc. with carbon laid on top.

I was thinking if you got thinner carbon sheeting you might be able to bend it onto your current dash panel and make it one piece.

I was going to make it 3 pieces, Ill make a trip to HD or Lowes and check out the thickness of the plexi. But I'll still keep shopping for actual thicker carbon fiber... If I did 3 pieces, the pieces i would need of carbon fiber would be really small and much cheaper that way... as you can see my dash isnt that big.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odkw...gloss&_sacat=0

I lay it up on an old window that's about 4'x6'. Laying it up face down on glass seems to work the best. The glass is perfectly flat and you can look underneath and see any air bubbles. We wax the hell out of the window first with mold wax. Any good wax will work. We then start with the carbon. I use a 2x2 twill pattern, since it looks like your "typical" carbon fiber that everyone thinks of. We wet it out with epoxy resin (West Systems) and roll out the air. We then lay the second layer of carbon right over the first, once it's rolled out. Then comes the fiberglass.
It depends on what I'm using the carbon for as to which fiberglass I use. If I want to make it thicker, I use a 12oz. 45* biaxial. The last sheet we layed up consisted of 2 layers of carbon and 5 layers of 12oz biaxial, all layed in succession. We do all of the layers in one shot. It takes a while to lay up and roll that many layers in a sheet that large, but it's worth it in the end. The last one ended up being about 3/16" thick. I used it in a single layer for a multitude of things, but we also doubled it up. We used it to make our electronics plates that go on the back of the engines. We doubled it so that not only would it be 3/8" thick, but it would have carbon on both sides, since both sides are visible. It that case, we sanded the back sides of both pieces, layed one layer of 1 1/2oz cloth with epoxy resin and put it on the hydraulic press with about 2000 psi on it. It was sandwiched between 1" pieces of aluminum to distribute the load. After sitting overnight, it was like a piece of steel. We were actually able to drill and tap it to mount the electronics.

Here are a few pics from a sheet we layed up a while back. I hope that all made sense. If not, let me know and I'll try to explain it better.
Eddie