Making Carbon Fibre Tubes - Help please

[Toneale]

I need to make a carbon tube that is c.146mm i/d in order to mount a headlight to.

As I can't find a pre made tube in the right size I thought I would have a go at doing it myself.

Being a complete carbon fibre virgin I need a bit of guidance on materials and wall thickness etc.

The kindly Mr @Swarf of the parish is making me a mandrel of the requisite size to form the tube and the light will ultimately be fixed into the tube by 2x bolts either side using the bracket in the pics below.

The tube will be approx 70-100 mm long and will need to support the weight of the light at 650gr.

The questions are:

1) What weight carbon sheet do i need?

2) How tick do the walls of the tube need to be?

3) What resin is best?

4) Whats the best way to mount the tube to the inside of the fairing?

Here's a pick of the light and bracket that will be mounted in the tube.....

The light will ultimately be fixed into the fairing in a similar fashion to the pic below..

Ta muchly peeps

[426hemi]

Ask jollygiant on here to make one.

[Toneale]

12 minutes ago, 426hemi said:

Ask jollygiant on here to make one.

They may still happen. Depends on how dadly i fuck things up.

Just fancied having a go myself, after all its only a simple tube. How hard could it be.....

Edited August 4, 2020 by Toneale

[firebeast]

I don't know the project, but why carbon.. Unless the fairing is also carbon, which still won't look right unless identical,surely it would be easier to just do f/g tube so it can joined /blended better and just painted up after? 

Being useless, I don't have a clue about the lights, but if they knock out a bit of heat, the carbon needs to be thicker than silencer sleeves for a start. Only one I have ever thought had decent thickness was some of the older arrow sleeves.. Very solid compared to aky etc.. 

If its purely cosmetic, then a blemish free tube with 146 od,  release wax, epoxy res, depends what finish you want I guess, as you can add more layers for strength, if needed, or bit of kevlar maybe around the mount areas. I ain't really worked much with it, lots of f/g on much bigger stuff, but it needs a uv block top coat. Maybe a bit of clear gelcoat for blending it into the fairing curves after. If jolly can do it for a nice fee, the messing about an costs off buying bits isn't always practical, never mind a better finish.. 

F/g is a Lot easier.. 

 

Edited August 4, 2020 by firebeast

[Toneale]

The bike is my fireblade @sev 

it's part of an ongoing weightloss program @firebeast this is the bike..

The fairing will also be c/f from sebimoto. I need to sort out the lights as i can only get a race fairing so need a solution to mount the light in the fairing.

 

[firebeast]

So it's a blade fairing not for an r1 then, hmm. 

Why not just get it mounted where you want it, , then rather than the tube idea, since it's older smaller imported original design brother had the headlight cover that gave the blade its look, way back in 1990', just do something similar in carbon and use small ti fixings. Jolly does that sort of stuff I gather and it would give it more of a 'factory' design finsh maybe..  So long as both carbon pieces match well of course. 

[monkeyfumi]

I believe sebimoto uses polyester resin (horrible stuff) for their CF parts. Something to keep in mind for compatibility with anything you make / get made. 

[jollygiant]

10 hours ago, 426hemi said:

Ask jollygiant on here to make one.

 

10 hours ago, Toneale said:

Just fancied having a go myself, after all its only a simple tube. How hard could it be.....

Haa haa, fill ya boots and I'll be here when you've pulled all your hair out. Trust me you really don't want to have a go yourself.

But if you really want to have a go yourself you'll just need to get an ali tube 1 mm bigger diameter (wall thickness no more than 2mm thick) and about 20mm longer than you need, then post it to me.
 

11 hours ago, Toneale said:

I need to make a carbon tube that is c.146mm i/d in order to mount a headlight to.

As I can't find a pre made tube in the right size I thought I would have a go at doing it myself.

Being a complete carbon fibre virgin I need a bit of guidance on materials and wall thickness etc.

The kindly Mr @Swarf of the parish is making me a mandrel of the requisite size to form the tube and the light will ultimately be fixed into the tube by 2x bolts either side using the bracket in the pics below.

The tube will be approx 70-100 mm long and will need to support the weight of the light at 650gr.

The questions are:

1) What weight carbon sheet do i need? 200gram

2) How tick do the walls of the tube need to be? I'd make it 0.6mm (2 layers of the pre-preg I use)

3) What resin is best? Epoxy would be best, but its quiet expensive. Polyester is cheaper.

4) Whats the best way to mount the tube to the inside of the fairing?  The same way as the bottom pic.

Here's a pick of the light and bracket that will be mounted in the tube.....

The light will ultimately be fixed into the fairing in a similar fashion to the pic below..

Ta muchly peeps

 

[lorenzo]

Me & Tim thefatman (remember him?) made tubes for a not disimilar thing on my RC45 replica thingy. Basically I found a tin of aerosol that was the right diameter and didn't have a lip that protruded beyond the main body of it. We then coated the can with parcel tape, taking care not to get any creases in it, then gave it a healthy coating of wax furniture polish (parcel tape has an inbuilt release agent, hence you can undo it from the roll, the wax helps this too). Fibreglass cloth and epoxy was then layered up around it and a tube made. Once that had set, the aerosol was dinked out of the middle of it and hey presto, a tube. I then mounted the fairing, sat the bike on a paddock stand and put some wood under the front wheel so that the bike was stable and flat, cut the hole where I wanted the tube to be and slid the tube into it, but with a bit poking out of the front for safety. When I was happy that it all aligned OK, I took small strips of epoxied fibreglass and simply smoothed them over the side of the tube and onto the edge of the fairing. When that was all around I cut an O slightly larger than the tube out of a flat sheet of fibreglass then slid that down the back of the tube and onto the fairing, so that all the little strips were no longer visible. This was supported by gaffer tape while it set, with a little spirit level helping my suss out straightness (I don't think this was necessary in hindsight, the tube itself only ended up about 3cm long in the fairing, and inaccuracies didn't really matter a massive amount). Once I was certain it was rock solid, I took a dremel to the front and trimmed off the excess, then did the same on the rear when the light itself was fixed in place. Any little chips etc, and to get the front perfectly smooth, I filled with araldite then rubbed over as if it was body filler.

Sadly I didn't take many pics of the whole process, but here's one of the finished tubes (still a few other bits to do on the bike though):

Edited August 5, 2020 by lorenzo

[Toneale]

2 hours ago, jollygiant said:

Haa haa, fill ya boots and I'll be here when you've pulled all your hair out. Trust me you really don't want to have a go yourself.

But if you really want to have a go yourself you'll just need to get an ali tube 1 mm bigger diameter (wall thickness no more than 2mm thick) and about 20mm longer than you need, then post it to me.

I have a feeling that it will end up in your capable hands but before that I would like to have a go.

Is there any specific type of epoxy resin I should be looking for? Also where do you get your supplies?

 

[firebeast]

Reckon you should just get jolly to make the tubes then fix them as well personally. Polyester won't bond as well as epoxy most likely, so getting the finish looking good on carbon would be important for my tastes. 

Unless it's all getting paint, but that's adding more weight 🤔

[jollygiant]

1 hour ago, Toneale said:

I have a feeling that it will end up in your capable hands but before that I would like to have a go.

Is there any specific type of epoxy resin I should be looking for? Also where do you get your supplies?

 

You actually need in about 1mm smaller than you want the finished one to be (forgot you want the inside the finished side)

You can do the way lozenge says, but you have to remember that you cant really sand it down when finished, so any imperfections you get on the mould and surface layer before hand will be there afterwards. Fibreglass is sooo easy compared to carbon and as long as you have the ratio of resin to harder right you can't fail! As @lorenzo proved.....

You'll need to put release agent on first then the gel coat, wait till it goes tacky then the first layer of dry carbon and you can't take it up once you put it down (not even 1/2mm) , then brush some resin on to it and get the air out by brushing (but not to hard or you'll distort the weave) then another layer of carbon mat and repeat until required thickness. Too much resin and its brittle not enough and its brittle! You also have to get all the air out of the part and off the surface layer or it looks shit. You have to do all this before the resin goes off too!

 

East coast fibreglass or Easy Composites are your best bet for materials

[Toneale]

54 minutes ago, sev said:

how does the lamp control left / right position on the beam ?

Up/down is through the bolts on the side, or does it just point straight ahead?

Side to side will be through slots in the tube sides.

[2moto]

Just design it in 3d CAD and get it 3D printed.

[426hemi]

Motoforza do various mounting tubes and lights but not in your size.

https://www.motoforzafairings.com/installation-holders-for-projector

[Toneale]

1 hour ago, sev said:

okey dokey. That may cause a bit of an issue as the whole assembly won't really be designed to rotate on that bracket.

So lets break this down...

The tube will need a flange on it to allow it to bond / bolt onto the inside face of the fairing.

You'd need to think about hard points to allow the light to mount up:

The bracket has flat sides, so the tube won't be a plain tube, it's going to need to have a flat to cope with the bracket face and (room to cope with) it's rotation if you want to have the light being able to swing side to side.

I'd build the pattern in stages which then makes it easier to deal with.

Imagine your tube with a box on the end.

Look at @Mark/Foggy cup cake thread and look at the light with its mounts.

You could do away with the bracket and have a plate at the back of the lamp with four bolts that interfaces on some holes to allow you to do dip and main pitch and yaw adjustments.

 

In order to do the initial work you might be better off with a tube of card or plastic from a food container or package.

The reason I say this is because you can mock it up on the fairing and cut it up easier and it's nice and light for you to play with.

you can use flash tape or parcel tape to cover it and stick it down.  It'll look a bit rough but you don't care about that at this stage - you just want the shapes down.

What this does for you is position the lamp as well, so you can see how deep it is. and then on the back of that postion the box that will hold your backing plate on the lamp.

 

So... Another question....  have you ever done any fibreglassing or laminating before?

My laminate experience extends to fixing the hole in a wing on a 1980 Vauxhall Viva van 28 years ago. 

The side to side movement only needs to be a couple of mm each way. 

Thinking about this i'm starting to think that the tube mounting method might not be optimal. 

Another option would be to 2x "L" shaped brackets bonded to the inside of the fairing either side of the headlight and then bolted to the headlight bracket in the pics above.

This would provide a flat surface for the headlight bracket to be bolted to and could be slotted to give me the adjustment required.

In addition this would mean the tubes purpose would be purely cosmetic.

3 minutes ago, 426hemi said:

Motoforza do various mounting tubes and lights but not in your size.

https://www.motoforzafairings.com/installation-holders-for-projector

Had a look at these. I decised against that type as the mandrel to form the tube would be more complicated to make, (you have to remember that i'm a complete nivice at this).

[lorenzo]

6 hours ago, sev said:

how does the lamp control left / right position on the beam ?

Up/down is through the bolts on the side, or does it just point straight ahead?

On mine I attached it to the front subframe, as you would normally with any other lights and just fixed the lights and the tubes so that they aligned. Any adjustment for bean etc was via a couple of screws on the subframe, the fairing and tubes always stayed put where they were.

[Toneale]

Ok @sev so to fix the tube to the fairing would you use the same "splooge" method with strips of c/f draped on the the tube and the fairing?

[firebeast]

If you really want to have a go, get a small laminating roller for making the tube, to get air out etc. Brush the epoxy on then roll the matt. Quicker, easier,  just buy a bit of acetone to leave it in a pot to clean out the res before it sets.. If it was the really small one, it would work on the fairing, tube joins as well, brushing mat once it even remotely starts to set is just not worththe grief and your throwing brushes away, unless you clean them off in acetone.. I may have something kicking about, but not sure I can get my hands on anything for a good while as think it's stored elsewhere.