Heavy Metal! Part Deux - The Carbon Copy

[shoooo32]

That's awesome! They do good work and $100/CV isn't outrageous. If you've ever tried to make an interrupted cut in hardened steel on a lathe, you know it destroys tooling!

[Jonny042]

Originally Posted by shoooo32

That's awesome! They do good work and $100/CV isn't outrageous. If you've ever tried to make an interrupted cut in hardened steel on a lathe, you know it destroys tooling!

It's not outrageous at all! They were nice to deal with, too. Will use again.

These showed up at my door today. They are Silicon Nitride bearings for the CVs. They aren't quite as light as I'd hoped (things rarely are, it seems) but Still well under half the weight of the steel balls. Apparently they are absolutely bomb-proof. There are probably easier and cheaper ways to save a pound, but somehow I never do the easier and cheaper thing...

The Si3N4 balls:



Steel:



PS - I'll probably end up dissecting the rear wheel bearings to see if I can use these in them, too. Or seeing if there's a fully ceramic option. That would be cool... although unlikely.

[Jonny042]

Now that I'm done with the sunroof opening for prototyping sunroof blanking panels, it's time to take the roof off!

Working a little out of order but I got a fresh batch of wider carbon fiber cloth that I need for deck lids and roof skins so I was finally able to lay up and bag and infuse a roof skin!

The bright green epoxy mold was an attempt at making a lighter, stronger, easier to handle mold that didn't give off noxious odors during layup. Somewhat successful but turned out to be 3 times as expensive, time consuming, and frustrating as the "normal" mold materials that I've since gone back to. I'm putting up with a bit of extra weight and the styrene odor during layup for future molds.



Laying out the outline offset for the honeycomb core:



The core material creates separation between inner and outer layers of carbon cloth, which adds an incredible amount of stiffness and strength. To get the same strength and stiffness from cloth layers alone would require adding up to 8 more layers of cloth and double the weight of the part and triple the cost!



First layers of cloth:



Core:



Final layup ready for trimming, vacuum bagging, resin infusion, and oven curing!:

[chrisbalich]

Marvelous.

[AG81]

Jon,

For what it's worth "your freaking awesome". What I have learned from this thread is unreal.

Oh and you make cool stuff cooler and lighter.

[Jonny042]

Originally Posted by chrisbalich

Marvelous.

It's not magic, but when you take a part out of the oven and de-mold it, it sure feels like it is!

When it works, that is. But my success rate is getting higher and higher. Mostly from experience gained from making mistakes. I'm working on a decklid right now and it's super challenging (and time consuming) to get the first layer to lay down fully on the surface of the mold, without bridging and resin rich areas in the details.

Turning 2D cloth into a 3D part:





It was never really my intention to make parts with visible weave. Really, it still isn't, the intention is to have beautiful, strong, and light parts that get painted.

But I want the paint to hide quality, not mistakes!!!

[Jonny042]

Continuing on the roof skin topic, this was by far the largest infusion I've done. It took about an hour to get to this point:



It's starting to become obvious why the oven has to be so large!



It turned out pretty great!





The final trimmed part will be about 3000g, or 6.6 pounds. Is it a bit heavier than you might expect? Well, it is fully my intention to post a picture of me STANDING ON THE ROOF once it's bonded to the shell. Preliminary testing indicates this has the strength and stiffness for that to happen.
If someone wanted a lighter version for a racecar I could make one as light as 1500g, but IMO it would be completely unsuitable for a street car.



My measurements and calculations tell me if I was to remove the roof skin from a non-sunroof car, that piece of steel would weigh 13.5 pounds, so about double that of the carbon skin.

The truthful and realistic weight savings for removing a sunroof and all its mechanisms, cutting a larger hole, and bonding on a carbon skin will be in the neighborhood of 35 pounds.

[H-viken]

Originally Posted by Jonny042

It was never really my intention to make parts with visible weave. Really, it still isn't, the intention is to have beautiful, strong, and light parts that get painted.

But I want the paint to hide quality, not mistakes!!!

Makes me think of the Koenigsegg cars that are painted close to where I live and they use translucent paint on some of their cars. From 10 feet it looks green, blue, red, or whatever the customer has chosen, and up close you see the carbon through the paint. Looks pretty awesome!

[maverck]

Originally Posted by Jonny042

Continuing on the roof skin topic, this was by far the largest infusion I've done. It took about an hour to get to this point:



It's starting to become obvious why the oven has to be so large!



It turned out pretty great!





The final trimmed part will be about 3000g, or 6.6 pounds. Is it a bit heavier than you might expect? Well, it is fully my intention to post a picture of me STANDING ON THE ROOF once it's bonded to the shell. Preliminary testing indicates this has the strength and stiffness for that to happen.
If someone wanted a lighter version for a racecar I could make one as light as 1500g, but IMO it would be completely unsuitable for a street car.



My measurements and calculations tell me if I was to remove the roof skin from a non-sunroof car, that piece of steel would weigh 13.5 pounds, so about double that of the carbon skin.

The truthful and realistic weight savings for removing a sunroof and all its mechanisms, cutting a larger hole, and bonding on a carbon skin will be in the neighborhood of 35 pounds.

Beautiful!!!I have my sunroof all taken apart right now and it blows my mind the whole roof could be less than 7 lbs.

[evan9eleven]

As usual Jon, epic work!

[mike sampsel]

Just "Jolly_rotten" I say "Jolly_rotten", Johnny. Beautiful!

[scootermcrad]

So when does the Autoclave get delivered?

[Racerbvd]

Wow, and I mean WOW!!

[Jonny042]

Originally Posted by H-viken

Makes me think of the Koenigsegg cars that are painted close to where I live and they use translucent paint on some of their cars. From 10 feet it looks green, blue, red, or whatever the customer has chosen, and up close you see the carbon through the paint. Looks pretty awesome!

I'm a little behind on responding to comments, sorry!

I really admire Koenigsegg and what he/they have accomplished, their technical solutions to things are incredible! It's so amazing that there is a market for what they produce.

I got hooked on the "Inside Koenigsegg" series produced by the drive many years ago, now: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHa6PXrV-yIgnXSYFT07BouKhEhyFuWnf&feature=shared

You might say it was influential LOL!

[Jonny042]

Originally Posted by maverck

Beautiful!!!I have my sunroof all taken apart right now and it blows my mind the whole roof could be less than 7 lbs.

Perfect time to install one of these! Although it's not a huge job, after the fact...

[Renngeist]

Stumbled on this just now…selfless plug (i haven’t seen if you already bought seats) but i have the seats out of a [emoji[emoji[emoji[emoji6][emoji6]][emoji[emoji[emoji6]][emoji[emoji6]]]][emoji[emoji[emoji[emoji6][emoji6]][emoji[emoji[emoji6]][emoji[emoji6]]]][emoji[emoji6][emoji6]][emoji[emoji[emoji6]][emoji[emoji6][emoji6]]]][emoji[emoji6][emoji6]][emoji[emoji[emoji[emoji6][emoji6]][emoji[emoji[emoji6]][emoji[emoji6]]]][emoji[emoji[emoji[emoji6][emoji6]][emoji[emoji[emoji6]][emoji[emoji6]]]][emoji[emoji6][emoji6]][emoji[emoji[emoji6]][emoji[emoji6][emoji6]]]][emoji[emoji6][emoji6]][emoji[emoji[emoji[emoji6][emoji6]][emoji[emoji[emoji6]][emoji[emoji6]]]][emoji[emoji[emoji[emoji6][emoji6]][emoji[emoji[emoji6]][emoji[emoji6]]]][emoji[emoji6][emoji6]][emoji[emoji[emoji6]][emoji[emoji6][emoji6]]]][emoji[emoji6][emoji6]][emoji[emoji[emoji[emoji6][emoji6]][emoji[emoji[emoji6]][emoji[emoji6]]]][emoji[emoji6][emoji6]][emoji[emoji[emoji6]][emoji[emoji6][emoji6]]]]]]][emoji[emoji[emoji6]][emoji[emoji6][emoji6]]][emoji[emoji[emoji6]][emoji[emoji6][emoji6]]]K sitting in a box here in NC if you’re interested in a lightweight option that looks period correct


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[LukasM]

Hi Jonny,

It's been a while since your last update, what has been keeping you busy over the summer and what giant mould have you come up with now?

The CF roof panel looks fantastic, and very cool to see the construction with core material, to add strength/thickness without too much weight and cost.

Cheers,
Lukas

[Jonny042]

Originally Posted by LukasM

Hi Jonny,

It's been a while since your last update, what has been keeping you busy over the summer and what giant mould have you come up with now?

The CF roof panel looks fantastic, and very cool to see the construction with core material, to add strength/thickness without too much weight and cost.

Cheers,
Lukas

Hi Lukas, nice to hear from you!

Summer was good to me, and did indeed involve some new carbon fibre!!! I spent a good share of our short season riding, training, and racing in the Local Cross Country series. I was pleased to, if nothing else, manage to improve my finishing place from dead last to actually beating a number of people and even reaching the level most would consider mediocre, instead of totally pathetic! LOL.

All in good fun, of course. This bike is incredible. Stock, it's 25.26 pounds without pedals, the carbon frame alone, WITH rear shock, is 1910 grams. Of course I have some lightweight parts to put on it, including a cassette that has aluminum and titanium gears that will save 100 grams :P



More on the car stuff later. Just as I was getting back into the swing of it, my vacuum pump stopped vacuuming! Not before I was able to make a few parts, luckily:

[chrisbalich]

Looking good, JN!

[LukasM]

Originally Posted by Jonny042

Hi Lukas, nice to hear from you!

Summer was good to me, and did indeed involve some new carbon fibre!!! I spent a good share of our short season riding, training, and racing in the Local Cross Country series. I was pleased to, if nothing else, manage to improve my finishing place from dead last to actually beating a number of people and even reaching the level most would consider mediocre, instead of totally pathetic! LOL.

All in good fun, of course. This bike is incredible. Stock, it's 25.26 pounds without pedals, the carbon frame alone, WITH rear shock, is 1910 grams. Of course I have some lightweight parts to put on it, including a cassette that has aluminum and titanium gears that will save 100 grams :P



More on the car stuff later. Just as I was getting back into the swing of it, my vacuum pump stopped vacuuming! Not before I was able to make a few parts, luckily:

Sounds like a good time, and nice to spend some time outdoors in the warm season, plenty of time to wrench during the long winters up north! Are you still into trials riding as well? I'm getting more and more into hard enduro now on a 300 2-stroke, and thought about getting a trials bike to train the technical skillset better.

To be more on topic, here is an idea for some nice weight savings (probably a few pounds compared to the stock fluid reservoir your car came with?), without removing functionality / usability / street legality of the car.

C6B81D65-B7DE-4D96-B854-9E5DE2F8519A_1_105_c by lukas.matzinger, on Flickr

These fit very neatly on the left strut tower, in existing factory holes:


Unfortunately the reservoir itself is not available to buy new any more, but I have a spare that would go well with the Carbon Copy.

Cheers,
Lukas