Bend Carbon Fiber?

[cartman]

Can i do some thing to carbon fiber to allow me to bend it and the material retain the bend?

[SkyPyro]

Nope. I would couple the carbon (I'm assuming that you are talking about rods) to some music wire and bend that.

Dan

[cartman]

Actually I am talking about flat stock .060 X .219. Guess I could use metal angles and tie carbon to it. THANKS!

[daniel o]

You might try to heat it up, however be aware of that the fibres in the compressed side can buckle so this is the main problem. If the resin is heat cured (I assume it is if you bought it) heating could be a little more difficult too.

[Butch777]

I,ve been messing with carbonfiber and trying to bend it. I ended up in taking 12K tow and 60 minute epoxy and making the bent pieces in a mold. I did however find a 2" diameter square tube about 6" long on ebay for 5 bucks and cut "L" shaped parts out of it. Butch

[cartman]

Thanks for the info guys.

[Ollie]

"Actually I am talking about flat stock .060 X .219."

Start with 0.007 x 2 inches carbon sheet. Rip the sheet into eight strips .22 wide with a Exacto blade. Epoxy the eight strips in a stack and bend the stack on a form while the epoxy hardens. The stack will hold the curve.

[jirvin_4505]

When building indoor models I have often heated CF and bent it.

I even have built Undercariage out of 2mm rod, heated until the epoxy flashed then bent the uc rod around the 6mm fuselarge tube and rehardended the rod fibres with zap.

I have created rightangle bends in pushrods using the same technique.

regards Jeff

[Chronister]

Hi Jeff,

What heating method did you use? I tried some variation of this and it didn't work. I used a soldering iron which probably didn't distribute the heat good enough. How did you do it?

Thanks!

[watnsee]

heat gun , beware if it gets hot agian though it will retain its memory. this can be avoided by glassing it front and back.

[jirvin_4505]

Hi Jeff,

What heating method did you use? I tried some variation of this and it didn't work. I used a soldering iron which probably didn't distribute the heat good enough. How did you do it?

Thanks!
I am rather extreme here. I used a bic cigarattelighter to burn the epoxy!
Experiment and you will get varying amounts epoxy degration from softening through to vapourising just leaving the fibres behind. Again i then use zap thin to reharden.

Sorry about the delayed answer.