![]() Since I didn’t want to sand down into the carbon too much, I ended up doing one last coat and sanding it down, to a super flat, very nice surface. Again, this took a lot of time, but the final results will be worth it. ![]() After this coat, it was back to sanding and flattening, to get the top looking nice and uniform. ![]() At this point, the top looked good in the sun, but the resin was quite uneven due to the complex surface of the top, and the fact that the carbon itself underneath was still not perfectly flat. Next up I applied another coat of resin, using the same process as before. Then I touched up any spots that were showing white with some black paint, to hide the imperfections. Once relatively flat, I went ahead and cleaned the top again. Note that a respirator is critical, since resin and carbon dust are quite bad for your health. I used an aggressive sanding disk to flatten all the high spots on this top. Now starts the process of a LOT of sanding. But first, note that forged carbon fiber is difficult to get 100% uniform when compared to fabric, since you’ll have different thicknesses of carbon in different places, which makes it harder to work with. As you can see, the surface is quite uniform, but there are places that could have used more resin. This simply involves lifting an edge, and pulling back the fabric. I waited 24 hours for the resin to cure, and then removed the peel ply. I ended up using a roller specifically designed for carbon and relieving air from composite parts, and it worked great. To use this, simply lay it over the fabric and evenly press it down. This is a synthetic, tightly woven fabric that will give you a more uniform surface after a layup, and will help give you more even resin distribution. The last thing that I like to do is lay down a “peel ply” fabric. Once your fabric is uniformly wetted out, with no spots left dry, you’ll be in great shape. This will ensure your fabric is fully saturated, which is what you want. To do this, I used a paint brush and dabbed on quite a bit of resin. Once you have the whole area covered in chopped carbon you’ll need to wet out the carbon from the top. Evenly spread your carbon over the surface, allow it to get saturated from below from the resin, and letting it stick to the surface. I did this while the carbon was dry, to prevent it being sticky and clumped up. Once resin is evenly spread over the surface, you can begin placing your chopped carbon. This will be what wets out the carbon fiber from the bottom. Once thoroughly mixed, apply a fairly heavy coat of resin on the surface of your part. This one, MAS Epoxy LV resin, was easy, at a 2:1 ratio. Follow the instructions for the specific system you’re using. Now we could begin the process of laying up our carbon fiber. This cleaning process will be used every time I clean the top for the rest of this article, and it’s the same process I used before painting. Depending on how much dust your part has, you may need to wipe it down multiple times. Then, I used a microfiber rag with denatured alcohol to do a final clean. To do this, I blew the dust off with compressed air. This will get grease and sanding dust off, and give your resin maximum adhesion. ![]() Next it was time to thoroughly clean the surface. After painting, I scuffed the surface again, to give the resin something to hold onto. Because of this, I opted to paint my surface black to match the carbon, and make the small uncovered areas less visible. Since forged carbon is random orientation carbon fiber strands, your original surface may show through in small spots once skinned, as its hard to get 100% coverage. If your surface is shiny, it probably is too smooth, and you should use a more aggressive sanding grit, or you need to sand more. Once the surface looks totally uniform and dull, you’ll know you’re in good shape to move on to the next step. To do this, I simply used an aggressive sanding disk on an electric sander to rough up the surface. ![]() This means roughing it up, to give your resin, the stuff that holds your carbon together, something to bite into and hold on to, so it doesn’t de-laminate after all your hard work. The first step to skinning a part in forged carbon fiber is preparing the surface. Once this was done, you can move on to the actual skinning process. You’ll want to do this with any part your skinning, so you don’t have to work around it. The first thing I did was remove all the trim from the top. This will get you through the entire process of skinning a part in forged carbon fiber! Today I’ll show you the process I used to save, restore, and enhance my Mazda Miata's hardtop, by skinning it in real forged carbon fiber.įirst, let's go over the materials I used. ![]()
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