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Carbon Fiber Wrap / Hydro Dip
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Hopkins
Commercial User
Hopkins
Commercial User
I tagged him in my post so hopefully he will chime in here. He is a helpful guy.
If you want to wrap the whole body you need to vacuum bag the body. Front and back can be skinned without vacuum. Search youtube for carbon fiber skinning.
+1 one the vacuum bagging. You can lay it up by hand, but it uses more material. I have done that a few times with automotive and bike parts. It's much cleaner using a bagging system. The weave can get messed up if you get to aggressive with the brush. I did this by hand...similar idea but actual cloth.
Hopkins
Commercial User
Big Hoss
Up note, down note, blue note, brown note...
- Sep 5, 2014
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If I can find some scrap carbon fiber I'll send it your way. You can also pratice on regular fiberglass cloth if you have to.
That's a great idea, I got fiberglass cloth here at the house. I got a shop vac also. I use to do preservation packaging. So I have some experience in that area.
Thank you very much for the offer, but I talked to this auto shop earlier that has some carbon fiber laying around. I think I'm going to go see them tomorrow and check out the material.....but that's very nice of you to offer. I really appreciate it!
The first bit of this is a lot of involved glider wing lay up, but it details an interesting technique that would transfer well to an instrument body if you are doing vacuum bagging.
I was looking for someone to paint me a particular type of camo on a couple of largish wood boxes. The local high end sporting goods store has a resident repair guy who dips a lot of gun stocks and bows and he said he'd give it a try instead of painting if I could find the pattern I wanted on the transfer medium. No luck there so far, but I've seen a guitar body that was dipped and it came out looking decent, but after seeing it, I don't think it would be nearly as durable as paint.
+1 one the vacuum bagging. You can lay it up by hand, but it uses more material. I have done that a few times with automotive and bike parts. It's much cleaner using a bagging system. The weave can get messed up if you get to aggressive with the brush. I did this by hand...similar idea but actual cloth.
that MARPAT looks stunning
nice job!
+1 one the vacuum bagging. You can lay it up by hand, but it uses more material. I have done that a few times with automotive and bike parts. It's much cleaner using a bagging system. The weave can get messed up if you get to aggressive with the brush. I did this by hand...similar idea but actual cloth.
Do you have a picture of this bass built? that looks sweet!
Hopkins
Commercial User
Wouldn't you have to put a clear over the what ever the transfer medium is made of?
I'm sure you could, but if it has to be clear coated, I'd just get them painted instead of dipped. The guy I talked to about dipping said the composite stocks and bows he does take the transfer much better than the wood stocks. The guitar body I saw was at a local music store and was on display by the guy who did the dipping as advertising. I asked the counter minion about it and he said a lot of folks have looked at it, but so far no one has had it done through their shop. I was thinking that it might work better if I just scuffed up a poly finish and had that dipped rather than doing it on bare wood. Best I can tell, the transfer is some type of water soluble film and from the examples I've seen in person, works best on smooth hard surfaces. Either way, I'm planning on giving dipping a try if I can find the cammo pattern I'm looking for. I've seen places where I can buy blank film, but that involves special inks and I'd need a wide format printer, and like the monkey urinating into a cash register, it soon runs into money.
Hopkins
Commercial User
I've never heard that one before
Yes, I think doing the transfer on the poly would be better than dipping a raw wood body into a vat of water. Either way I think a coat or two of clear urethane would be a good idea to protect the finish.
I second the hydro dipped suggestion. I assume you want the look, not necessarily carbon fiber for structural reasons. It will be much easier to move ink around than carbon fiber.
