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Recommendations: best glue/epoxy for carbon fibre?

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  • May 27, 2015 at 6:33 pm #24096
    Toro Toro

    Obviously, I wouldn’t be so dumb as to try and glue a damaged frame or wheel back together!

    Much smaller job in mind; one very skinny wing of a CF bidon-cage has cracked. It’s one of the lifeline ones wiggle sell; as Keith Bontrager said, you can pick any two of strong, light, and cheap.

    But anyway, it’s obviously a small job with no implications for rider safety. And the forces it will have to withstand are not enormous, no matter how thirstily I yank out the bidon. But I’d rather not replace the cage. Anybody have recommendations?

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  • May 29, 2015 at 7:06 pm #847721
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    jiberjaber

    Toro Toro wrote:That’s really

    Toro Toro wrote:
    That’s really helpful, cheers!

    You’d recommend against just epoxying or gluing the edges together, then?

    Correct, as Gmac said, the epoxy is just there to wet and bind the materials together, you could use superglue and some kevlar thread, wind the thread round the break tight binding and then wick superglue in.

    You will still need some sort of splint and the finish will be that of a bound thread. Don’t use cotton thread it will react with the superglue!

    May 29, 2015 at 2:39 pm #847719
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    gmac101

    Composite structures need
    Composite structures need both parts to work, the re-inforcement and the binder. Epoxy on its own is relatively brittle as the carbon fibre re-inforcement has failed at the break all you would have is the epoxy in the join which would probably fail quite quickly.

    May 28, 2015 at 9:54 pm #847717
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    Toro Toro

    That’s really helpful,
    That’s really helpful, cheers!

    You’d recommend against just epoxying or gluing the edges together, then?

    May 28, 2015 at 8:42 pm #847715
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    jiberjaber

    4:55 in to this video gives
    4:55 in to this video gives you an idea of the video tape wrap (its making a tail boom for a glider, but similar idea to get a nice smooth finish 🙂 )

    May 28, 2015 at 7:57 am #847713
    0
    jiberjaber

    You want something like
    You want something like carbon tow and a thin – runny epoxy. Very popular in the model world but if you were just buying it for this repair, then it might almost be cheaper for a new cage 🙂

    Laminating epoxy should get you by, you can get this from a RC model store. A 30 min epoxy also, generally, the longer the handling time, the thinner it usualy is (though not always!)
    http://www.inwoodmodels.com/index.php?id_product=6355&controller=product

    You probably dont need more than 5m or a lot less of the tow.
    http://www.easycomposites.co.uk/carbon-fibre-reinforcement/carbon-fibre-tow-3k.aspx

    You could give easycomposites a call and see if you can get some shorter length.

    In terms of the repair, use gloves. Rough up the area, degrease the area.
    Mix the epoxy, wet out the tow and then remove the excess epoxy with some paper towel.
    Lay some short tow along perpendicular to the break
    Bind the tow around the break and the layer you put down, tight and then give it a pat down again with some paper towel. The carbon doesnt need to be soaking wet with epoxy!

    Depending on the finish, you can use old VHS tape and wrap the repair with that, or use electricians tape to tightly bind over the repair, this will compress the repair and squeeze out some more epoxy… so more paper towel.

    Links above are just examples. I need to rush off to get a train, but I am sure I can dig out a youtube vid which should help visualize the above.

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