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CARBON FOOTPRINT
Jim Youngs, 11 May 2009 CARBON FOOTPRINT
How To Dress Up Surfaces With Self-Adhesive Carbon Fiber Sheets
By Jim Youngs, Photos by Steve Graber and Jim Youngs
The unmistakable look of woven carbon fiber just screams high performance. It also typically screams “pricy” and “difficult to work with” properly. Well, we found a way to get a carbon fiber look and do so rather easily without breaking the bank. Called Performance Carbon, the minute Sly Machines told us about this stuff our minds went into overdrive imagining all the applications we could use it for.
Available in five colors (black, silver, red, blue and pink), Performance Carbon sheets are either real carbon fiber or glass fiber with a strong adhesive backing. The sheets are available in three sizes (7.87” x 9.45”, 18.90” x 23.62, 18.90” x 47”) and are flexible enough to conform to curve surfaces, feature automotive-quality adhesive and can be trimmed with scissors and razor blades. And as you will see, can be put through a computer-operated vinylcutting machine for intricate designs and even coated with clearcoat or other paint.
Though we considered a bunch of ideas for using Performance Carbon, we settled on two projects, (though there will surely be other uses with the leftovers)—a Cobra dash and some slick graphics on a Grabercars La Bala. Some of our other ideas included a dash panel in our Speedster, inner door panels in an RSK Spyder, engine compartment trim, console detailing and even a background for a car’s emblem. Of course Steve Graber and his 11-year-old daughter, Sarah, handled the graphics on the La Bala while I dressed up the dash.
You may recall a How-To story we did on installing gauges (KCB February 2008) where we used a cast-off piece of FFR Coupe aluminum dash to illustrate the project. Well, for this carbon fiber dress-up we revisited that same dash piece and Speedhut gauges to give it an updated look.
Graber credits Brad at Sly Machines for jumping through a couple of hoops to achieve the neat graphics for the La Bala, from Steve’s design. He credits his daughter as a very fast learner as she watched dad install a small piece of the carbon fiber graphics then took over the rest of the project from cleaning the rocker surfaces, prepping the decal, laying it out and sticking it in place. Does the phrase “So simple an 11-year-old girl can do it,” give you hope for an excellent job?
Atypical of most guys, I read the instructions, but then completely deviated from them to cover the dash. The instructions called for applying included Tracer film to the surface to be covered, marking the outline of the install, peeling the Tracer off and adhering it to the Performance Carbon sheet to transfer the design. You’ll see that I skipped a few steps but got a good installation anyway. I reasoned that since I was covering a pretty flat surface, my method would work just as well.
Hopefully these projects will give you some ideas on how to dress up areas of your car with a hi-tech, woven carbon fiber look. KCB
The Performance Carbon sheets are self-adhesive and backed by an automotive- grade adhesive. They are very easy to apply and work with and even are flexible enough to conform to curved surfaces.
For our dash piece we traced the outline of the aluminum on the sheet backing and made some notations where to cut outside of the lines so that we could fold the material around the edges of the dash, even though most of the edges will be hidden by painted body edges or trim.
We cut outside of the lines so that we could fold the edges over and leave a smooth line all the way around. The material cuts easily with scissors or razor and leaves a clean line.
All the surfaces should be very clean to assure good adherence.
We peeled back half of the backing and placed the dash piece on the sticky adhesive. Once it was positioned properly, the rest of the backing was pulled off.
We then flipped the piece over to the front side and used a squeege to smooth out the material assuring we didn’t have any air bubbles.
The extra material flaps around the perimeter were folded over and squeeged down smooth.
Once the carbon fiber surface was smoothed sufficiently, we cut out the holes for the instruments and steering column.
With our work surface placed at a comfortable height Sarah first cleaned body side panels with liquid soap and water, then rinsed with water and dried with a paper towel or a cloth.
Because the decal was fairly long and complicated, with lots of little pieces we first made sure to understand which pieces of the decal we wanted to apply to the car and which ones to remove. Sitting at a large work area with lots of good lighting Sarah went through the decal and removed the unused pieces.
Sarah left the decal backing on and made a trial fit of the decal on the body panel. Once she was happy with the location she applied tape the top side of the decal forming a hinge with the panel.
She flipped the decal over the hinged side so it was upside down. Then she removed the backing, revealing the adhesive.
Now she carefully flipped back over, holding the falling against the panel extra set of hands helps decal from making premature with the body panel.
Using a squeegee Sarah pulled the decal slowly down against the panel starting from the hinged edge. This has to be done slowly and carefully to avoid trapping any air bubbles. A sharp point of an Xacto blade can sometimes be used to pierce the center of any bubbles and then squeegeed out. But its best to do all possible to avoid them in the first place.
Sarah’s final task was to align and affix the race checkers at the end. Holding up the finished piece, this is something that Sarah can be very proud of doing! She did a perfect job.
Sly, Inc.
Dept. KCB
21213-B Hawthorne Blvd.
#5607
Torrance, CA 90503
310/543-0512
www.slymachines.com
From the December 2008 Issue of Kit Car Builder Magazine
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