havabooz

I DONT KNOW HOW LEGIT THIS IS

BUT I TORE OUT AN AD IN AN IMPORT MAGAZINE THAT ADVERTISED AN INDESTRUCTABLE ABS CF LIP

IT SOUNDS LIKE A PERFECT IDEA FOR PPL THAT NEED THE DURABILITY BUT ALSO WANT CF..THE ONLY OTHER ALTERNATIVE IS THE URETHANE FROM VEILSIDE BUT THAT ISNT OVERLAYED WITH CF

I ALSO ASKED HIM ABOUT A CF HOOD AND HE SAID HE HAS

AND THAT THEY ARE NOT...I REPEAT NOT LAYED OVER FIBERGLASS

I TOLD HIM I WANTED TO SEE THE LIP AND THE CF HOOD (HE IS IN NY)

HE SAID OK

ILL LET YOU KNOW WHEN I DO

btw...sorry for the caps..i just realized...but i didnt feel like typing it all over again

MY350Z.COM

iTrader: (2)

my ears hurt.

I want to see this, i'm a CF fanatic.

swifty949

the problem is that carbon fiber is stiff, and ABS is not only very expensive, the carbon fiber wont lay on it properly.

Not many companies can make ABS becuase the machine costs a few Million $$$

ares

iTrader: (2)

heres a nice little number, actually ABS is EXTREMELY CHEAP. to make. heh thats the key.

to start it up you need a steel mold, an easy open close mold no bigger than a square foot is about 20grand. one the size of the bumper? oye I could only imagine!

once theres a mold, to make a bumper? hmmm maybe 20bucks? thats great, but no one in there right mind would use that. and that is not carbon fiber, it would have to be overlay. or somethin...

thats why people use fiberglass and polyurethane, I have molds on my desk made of this stuff, it takes some knowhow to make them, but the startup costs are much more acceptable. and you can pour them yourself, no machines needed.

down side is you cant really inject the material into it underpressure as you can with ABS plastic. its also not as fast to cure, you can knock out a whole lot of peices in a few minutes with injection molding. you can also get a higher quality peice since its injected vs poured. this quality isnt really needed in a bumper tho... as its not that intricate.

peptidbond

iTrader: (2)

Ares is correct. Once you have the ABS mold, it is really cheap to turn out. Just about everything you can think of is made of ABS. Your remote control, phone, dash panels, computer cases, the list goes on.

Another method for molding ABS is to bake sheets of it. We used to do this for cutom car stereo installs before fiberglass caught on. You simply bake it at 180 degrees. Once it gets up to temp, you can simply mold it. This also applies to lexan (plexiglass).

Now, would ABS and CF together be indestructable. HELL NO! ABS is certainly one of the more brittle plastics. It is not as bad as bakelite, but it certainly would not hold up like urethane. Urethane is great because it is easily molded, can be injected if desired, is cheap, and it also can be very flexible.

Hope this helps you determine if that lip is worth it. I would not believe that it is indestructable.

swifty949

oh as for real cf hood...expect to spend at least $4g's. This is done in a Autoclav & its not easy to find dry carbon hoods. Usually they are reserved for racing.