DIY Forged Carbon Skinning Tutorial - A Complete Guide

What's up guys I'm Alex and today we're gonna be working on our Supra project. In the background a few things been happening as we decided to outsource the paint job for the Supra. As parts are starting to come back in we're getting closer to being able to assemble the car again. The only thing that isn't getting painted however is the bonnet. The Supra's bonnet is aluminium so it means it's really light compared to steel bonnets. So why aren't we adding some weight? I'll be forged carbon skinning the bonnet and run you through step by step. The difference to previous times where I have been forged carbon skinning car parts is that we're not gonna use a vacuum this time. But enough chit chat let me walk you through. I started off by removing the windshield washers carefully but since they're pretty old already they're getting replaced anyway. I'm using 120 grit to sand  up the paint on the outside. I considered sanding the entire paint off but it would have taken even more time and wouldn't serve any greater purpose really. The inside will get painted black afterwards because it'll be way too complicated to give the inside a forged carbon skin as well. And since no one's gonna see the inside most of the time it doesn't matter much. I went for 120 grit because I don't want to go too aggressive on the aluminum and risk eating away at the material. We took special care around the edges and sanded them by hand so we didn't damage anything. Like always constant wiping down with grease remover would let us get a better view of what we're working with and free the workpiece from contaminants for what's yet to come. Once we were happy with the surface we moved on to priming. As before we're using a regular black primer. We're not using the primer to achieve a better adhesion here because we already had the previous paint on the bonnet that will offer plenty of adhesion on the metal but rather because we need a black background so if the carbon flakes do not offer perfect coverage we don't have high contrast shiners. Going around the edges first and then cover the entire surface with two not too heavy coats. just enough to have a somewhat uniform black background to work with. Up next is the first epoxy coat. I'm using this time around a generic laminating epoxy that is mixed 10 to 6. Make sure to follow your epoxy's instructions and always use a scale. Mix your epoxy for a solid two minutes straight that you avoid having spots of unmixed epoxy that will never cure. Trust me that is literally the worst that can happen. Ideally you do it like we did: Grab a couple of mates and refreshments and have a good time while taking care of this. The aim is to apply thin coat of epoxy and then let it cure for an hour or two. Again depending on which epoxy you're using so it reaches the so-called b-stage which is the epoxy becoming really sticky and no longer running. That is the best time to apply the carbon flakes. The carbon flakes are mostly chopped tow carbon in varying lengths. While I haven't done it in theory you can cut your own flakes by simply taking leftover carbon sheets, pick them apart and cut the carbon strands into the desired length. The flakes I got are mostly in between 15 and 25 millimeters. Spreading them around is as easy as it gets. Try to spread a solid amount as much as possible. You want to cover as much of the black surface as you can but no need to sweat it if you don't get it 100 right. The following day we mixed up the next batches of epoxy to entirely wet out the now solidly stuck flakes. While applying the coat take care to not disturb the dry flakes too much because they may start to disintegrate and leaving you with a bit of a fuzzy mess. I do the wetting out specifically after the first coat has cured so the flakes don't fall apart as easy but you still have to be careful. This is really a heavy coat as it serves not only to wet out the flakes from the first round but also to stick another light coat of new flakes to the bonnet. This is done to minimize the spots that haven't received enough coverage and where the black background is clearly visible. When you have given it another light dusting of flakes go over it again and try to target specific areas that need more attention. After covering it in a satisfactory manner I gave it a once over with compressed air so all the excess as well as too bunched up flakes were either blown off or spread out a bit nicer. The last step of this phase is covering it with a release film to help the heavy coat of epoxy seep into the newly added carbon flakes. While I try to remove as much air as possible under the film I do not recommend to use a squeegee or any excessive force because again it will mess with the fragile flakes. The next morning I took off the release film and I was left with a rough bumpy surface. Before moving on to the next stage which involves a lot of sanding I touched up a couple of dry spots so i can cleanly sand it as flat as I can. I'm going for a 60 grit on my DA sander because this epoxy carbon flake combination is incredibly tough and is a nightmare to sand. At this point I should also mention that you should never sand this without any respiratory protection because the dust this creates can be highly toxic. Please be careful. After sanding it as flat as I could without going through in too many spots because I guarantee it will happen I continued with a thorough wipe down with prepsol and going over it with compressed air. I walked around the bonnet and did some touch ups with the black primer simply spraying some in the cap and then using a small brush to put some of it on the spots where i sanded through. I let that flash off and started mixing up the first of two heavy back-to-back coats I want to apply as a build up. I tried to put on as much  as the surface could hold  and let it sit for about 1 1/2 hours. When I came back I continued my touch-up work with single flakes and put them on the black spots I corrected before the first coat and also in the places I felt I was missing a flake or two and the background was too visible. By the time I was done with the touch up two hours had passed and the epoxy was in its b-stage ready for the second heavy coat. When everything was applied I picked up my chef's blowtorch and went over the surface so small air bubbles would pop and wouldn't be trapped inside the epoxy later on. That left me with a nicely closed and clean epoxy surface ready for the final sand once it's cured. Now it was time to flatten out the surface without sanding through anywhere. I started again with a 60 grit on the DA followed by a 120 grit on the DA and i finished up with 120 grit block sanding. At that point I flipped the bonnet around and sanded off all the excess and drippings so once i'm done with the surface we can paint it underneath. I wiped it clean and started the final light coat. This coat is only supposed to close the surface and remove all the sanding scratches and leave you with a product that can be prepped for a quick finer grit sand and clear coat paint. Well that looks nice, I think the structure turned out great but I'm not exactly happy with the yellowish tint because of the epoxy I've used. It doesn't look that bad on camera in fact it doesn't look that bad overall But for future reference and so that you know what to watch out for when you're doing this yourself go get a fairly clear and un-tinted epoxy. I'm also going to use this opportunity and add a terminology disclaimer here. Just because I'm calling this forged carbon it doesn't mean it is the same thing that Lamborghini is doing. They use pre-made sheets of pressed flakes this method is simply getting you a similar aesthetic Anyway let's go through the materials I used. I was a bit of an idiot and I didn't weigh the bonnet before and after so i cannot tell you exactly how much material i've added but i will give you an estimate in a second. In phase 2 where I put up the initial epoxy layer and we tried to cover the entire surface with as many flakes as possible we used 100 grams of mixed epoxy and roughly 300 grams of carbon flakes. In phase 3 where we heavily wetted out the flakes and laid up even more flakes to cover the black spots I used approximately 350 grams of mixed epoxy and a further 100 grams of carbon flakes. In phase 4 two further epoxy coats totaled roughly 350 grams of epoxy and a couple of flakes to correct the black spots were negligible in weight. And in phase 5 the last coat was another 100 grams of epoxy. That leaves us with a total of 400 grams of carbon flakes and about 900 grams of epoxy. I recommend getting 1/2 kilo of epoxy flakes for a bonnet like that and a full kilo of epoxy. I reckon that I sanded off a solid 500-600 grams out of the 1.3 kilos I added meaning I've left on roughly three quarters of a kilo on the bonnet. I mean I get it, adding weight doesn't serve any purpose whatsoever but hey it looks good right. And lastly algorithm talk, do I really need to say more? Just let me know what you think of the forged carbon look in the comments and do the old thumbs up if you liked it and subs if you loved it. Thanks guys I'll see you next time! Bye

Channel: LXGspec

Views: 377,356

Keywords: forged carbon, chopped carbon, carbon skinning, carbon fiber, forged, chopped, carbon, diy forged carbon, forged carbon skinning, diy forged carbon skinning, forged carbon fiber, forged carbon fiber skinning, carbon fiber skinning, lxgspec, forged carbon supra, forged carbon bonnet, forged carbon hood, supra bonnet, supra hood, forged carbon tutorial, forged carbon skinning tutorial, chopped carbon skinning, chopped carbon fiber wrap, lamborghini forged carbon

Id: VV7h5cEeqvc

Length: 11min 40sec (700 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 26 2021