Quote:
Originally Posted by herr_oberst
Check out the Vitus Carbone from the 1980's.
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thats sort of a hybrid graphite/aluminum bike
fyi for anyone... Graphite and Carbon Fiber are interchangeable.
Whoever made the Vitus Carbone bought the tubes from one company and probably had a different company die cast or investment cast the lugs in aluminum and then they glued the frame together with an adhesive like Hysol 9394.
Todays bikes use a multi piece aluminum mold that costs (guessing here) a half million or more and I would expect there is a bladder inside when the frame is cured.
a clever guy (gal?) can make a lot of things with composites
I read somewhere that the structure of the DCX single stage to orbit experiment was made out of carbon fiber cloth and room temp cure epoxy. Scaled Composites and Burt Rutan were involved.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X