Wednesday 8 July 2009

Sanding and coating

Only one picture now, more will follow. Look for the sneak preview below.

Sanding is the job that I hate most on carbon fibre constructions. The carbon dust is irritating to your skin and itches. So sanding is done in long sleeves, long trousers and with gloves. Not really fun when it is 30 degrees centrigrade.

First I do the rough work using file, sanding paper and a Stanly shaper. I remove most of the ridges and other small defects.

Next step is sanding the entire surface. Tjalling is a good friend of mine with a wood workshop. And in this workshop he has a professional Festo sanding machine connected to a Festo vacuum cleaner. I have asked him to use his workshop in the hope that the carbon dust will be less of a problem. It works like a charm. The sanding dust simply disappears. In stead of a black workshop and an itching skin I just end up with a nice smooth frame and nothing else.

In the weekend I go for a ride with Levia in the cargobike and buy a pot of dubbel D UV coating. This is a polyester based coating that is very tough, UV resistant and it is an UV filter. The epoxy of the frame can not tolerate UV very well, so this coating is like sunscreen for my bike.

After 2 layers of the coating the frame looks like this:

I probably will add one extra layer off coating, lightly thinned got get a smoother finish.

After that I will paint the rear triangle in glossy black.

No comments: