I watched that Easy Composites video on making forged carbon parts a while back and have meant to try it. Looked pretty idiot-proof, unlike some other carbon fiber processes. I could have just used a bit of wood for the footpads here, but where’s the fun in that.
Started out designing/printing the molds. These are too big for my printer so they had to be printed in sections; male mold was glued together, female was held together by two threaded rods. Idea being that this would make it easier to get the part out. Printed at 60% infill, so there’s about 1.5kg of filament here.
Molds were sanded lightly, I’m not real concerned about seeing layer lines in the final part as it’ll likely be covered up. I’d probably recommend doing a layer of primer and sanding it down for a better finish, just make sure this doesn’t mess up your tolerance between the male and female sides.
Those holes in the female side are ejection points I can hopefully use to get the part out without destroying the mold.
I go for 3 coats of PVA mold release, followed by a few coats of a spray on wax mold release (J-Wax).
The part is mostly flat, but does vary in thickness from 5-15mm. Given this, I thought it’d be ok to mix it up a little and use a mix of the chopped carbon and woven fibers.
Followed the calculations in the Easy Composites video to work out the amount of carbon vs resin and it all worked out ok. Just enough resin to make sure everything was wet down enough. No photos of packing the mold as gloves were just covered in a mess of resin and chopped carbon. I will say that spacing the woven carbon at regular intervals throughout the chopped carbon did make things a lot easier, it’s a lot easier to wet down than the chopped stuff and kind of held it in place.
Once the mold was packed it was time to clamp. Used two sheets of masonite to help spread the clamping force, would have preferred some metal plates but just too hard find/cut to size.
Be prepared for a lot of resin to drain out!
Popped the male mold off two days later, and this came off rather easily.
But totally destroyed the female side.
Washed it, cut/sanded off the mold flash, drilled the holes (the countersink was in mold, but not the through hole), and we have a completed part.
Pics from above are a mix of the first and second footpad, second footpad is currently curing so hopefully all goes ok as it did for the first. It’s a bit of effort but seems like a great way to make some stiff/light/decent-looking parts.
. Life stuff just kind of gets in the way sometimes. I have started working on this again, and there’s nothing else I need for the build, only time. Just spent the last few days getting up to date on what’s changed VESC balancing app and it seems like a good time to get this build actually finished.
