hello and welcome to this easy composites video tutorial in this series which is probably the most ambitious will ever take on we're going to be answering the question that we get asked more often than any other which is how to make your own carbon fiber vehicle panels like this car bonnet that you see here in the tutorial we are going to be showing you every single step along the way including making the molds making the parts bonding the parts together trimming and finishing to enable you to make your own incredibly light incredibly strong perfectly finished carbon fiber panels we really hope you enjoy in the first step in our process is to take this original steel bonnet which we're using as our pattern we're going to add barriers all the way around the outside of it so that when we make our mold we've actually created a mold with a flange on and that flange will add stiffness to the mold and it will also give us plenty of opportunity to position the bagging consumables and things for the resin process before we actually apply any barriers to this part we're just going to take the opportunity to put down a full background layer of release agent we're using easily switch is a chemical release agent and of course this is what's going to stop the gel coat from sticking to the part but while we've got the bonnet in this state it's much easier to ensure that we've got everywhere covered and then we'll probably do another application later on making barriers can be tricky the technique that we've developed is to use corrugated signboard for the barriers themselves and then bond those onto the underside of the part using hot melt glue so the first thing to do is to use masking tape to actually make a template of the edge of the part and then we'll transfer that onto the signboard and cut the barriers themselves so with the masking tape all the way around the edge of the pot it's a case of just marking up where we're actually going to make the barrier pieces in separate sections we also at the same time just draw on the angle that we're going to cut the the barrier sections at and then finally number them so that we can identify them so we're going to have a cut line here will have a cut line coming off at this angle here then this will be one piece and we'll have cut lines on the barrier about there the masking tape comes off the part extremely easily so we're just going to start it off and then cut it into the parts that we've identified in careful not to to rip the tape so we're transferring this line here onto the board we know that the angles that we want to make the barriers at once we've marked out all these templates we're just going to cut them out with a sharp knife and then we're going to be able to position them around the outside of the part we're working on the underside of the bonnet now where we're going to be positioning this barrier now the way we're going to do that is we're going to apply masking tape to the edge on the underside of the bonnet here and then we're going to be using hot melt glue on the masking tape and then on the barrier the reason for the masking tape is so that this barrier is quite easy to remove when we're done with the process so we can get started with that with the masking tape we've got masking tape all the way along this top edge so now it's time to use hot melt glue gun I'm going to just put a bead of glue all the way along the top edge and then stick the barrier to it we've now flipped this bonnet over just before we do the the wax we're actually going to use a release tape to actually just seal these these joins or a breaker tape and that's just going to prevent again any year of the gel coat from running down into the gap so we just take the tape and take the seam because it's a release tape the resin the gel coat won't stick to it so the next step is to use a yellow fill it in wax to actually create a bead all the way around the edge between the bonnet onto the flange and what that will do is stops the gel coat from running under and locking in and also gives us a nice smooth transition so that when we've got the mold the parts themselves are going to release nicely they're not going to get caught up or mechanically locked on this edge so we've put the the fill it in wax all the way around the outside now and you can see from this close-up that what we want to do is always be sure that when you put the wax down you've got what's called a draft angle and that's going to mean that when we remove the part or separate the part part and the mold that there's not going to mimic a nickel lock we're now ready to put the proper coat of release agent onto the bonnet so we're going to apply two coats of the easy lise all the way over the surface of the panel now the Philippine wax doesn't require a release agent and in fact will actually get dragged off by the release agent if we're not careful so we're not going to apply any release agent to the wax we are going to apply the release agent onto the barrier itself just in case there's any contamination it is made from polypropylene so it shouldn't stick but just in case it does we're going to give it a coat over as well we've now left this a good half an hour to fully dry off and we're actually going to apply two coats of wax all the way over the top of this of the steel bonnet part now usually we wouldn't use wax on top of a release agent a chemical release agent generally works on its own however in the case of going from a pattern to the mold itself we want to be absolutely sure that we're not going to have any problems with the release and so having the the chemical release agent and the wacks although it's a slightly unusual combination is going to ensure that we do have no release problems we're now buffing off the wax I've been left it about five or ten minutes and that you just really want the lightest possible pressure when you're doing this just using a microfiber cloth here and just skimming over the surface and you can see the shine start to emerge alright so we've now left the wax to fully hardened off which is around about half an hour or something like that and so it's actually time to make the the mold itself so we're going to be using a very versatile tooling system called uni mold and the UNAM old system comprises a tooling gel coat which is a vinyl ester tooling gel coat now the reason we're using vinyl ester is that that's actually compatible with polyester resin vinyl ester resin but most importantly for us epoxy resin and it will guarantee an excellent release of the parts out of the mold which you wouldn't get with a normal polyester gel coat the inner mold system then uses a coupling coat which is reinforced coupling coat and we actually add a lightweight chopped strand mat in with that which forms the the connection between the tooling gel and then the the tooling resin itself applying the gel coat now we can do this in either two thin coats or one thicker coat we'd be targeting in a single thick coat of around about 0.8 millimeters now for a bonnet this size we're looking at mixing up around about 700 grams of gel coat if you mix up too little in you come up short you can always mix up some more we're using normal M ekp catalyst and ratio of about 1.5 to 2 percent so for 700 grams of the of the gel coat it obviously be 14 grams a 2% of the catalyst applying the gel coat is totally straightforward covering it and going for that proximately 1 mil she's reasonably thick application we've now allowed this gel coat to cure to the right point it's certainly very much firmed up but it still got a very slight level of tack which is the right point for a gel coat so in the Union mold system it's now time to add the coupling coat as we say we've got a light chopped strand mat we're using a 2 to 5 gram here the this is really as heavy as you would want to go at the coupling coat stage you could go lighter and we're going to be wetting this through with the with the coupling coat again this is catalyzed a ratio of about 1.5 to 2 percent we're going to be catalyzing it at 2% and we're going to use a full kilo on on this layer when the coupling coat has been fully catalyzed it does actually change to a darker color so you can tell it's ready to go now when you're working with the coupling coat it's just like any chopped strand laminating so you apply the resin to the part first and then drop the glass mat down onto the resin and then wet it through from above the light chop strand provides reinforcement at this early stage but because it's a light matte it's very easy to get it down into the contours of a mold which ensures that you're not going to have any voids between the gel coat and the the main tooling reinforcements and the coupling coat itself chemically is designed to act as an interface between this vinyl ester tooling gel coat and the the tooling resin itself we've now allowed this coupling coat to cure in our case it's taken around three hours and it's very much firm to the touch but it's got a slight tack and that's the right point for us to go on with the main reinforcement now because we're using the UNAM old tooling system we're going to be putting down all of the reinforcements and resin in one hit the Uni mold tooling resin is a filled resin system so it's very important to thoroughly mix up the content and we'll also give it a quick stir to make sure that any sediment or fillers thoroughly mixed into the resin with the resin catalyzed at between one and two percent we've used 2% cuz it's only a small mold without going to apply the resin all the way over the surface and start building up this chopped strand mat so we want to work reasonably quickly and get it all down in one hit we've now allowed this to cure fully overnight as you can see the color of the mold has changed to a lighter shade indicating that the exotherm has taken place and so we're going to turn the mould over and without removing the bonnet we're going to look at making the molding for the inner skin okay so we're now going to remove the temporary barriers that we put in place and you can see why we use the signboard it's really perfectly from the from the tooling gel coat we're going to be using the flange from the upper mold as the flange to the lower mold and so what we're going to do is leave most of this affiliating wax in place but we're just going to ensure that it's nice and smooth so that it acts again as a fill it between the the flange and the inner mold that we're going to make so we're looking at the underside of the bonnet now we've got lots of holes as you can see that have been cut out dye stamped out of this inner skin we need to blank all of these off which will be using release tape for and we've also got these studs here that were for the hinge mechanism and the latch at the front now because we're happy to sacrifice the bonnet in this case we're going to grind these off and again grind the latch mechanism off if you didn't want to sacrifice the bonnet and you want to keep it usable then you could blank these off using plasticine or something similar and then make the mold around them but for simplicity we're just going to grind them off so applying the release tape to mask off these holes on the underside of the bonnet we just pull the tape tight over the hole and press it down firmly so where we've ground off this latch mechanism we're going to tape all the way over this using the release tape and the tape should be sufficiently strong so that we won't need any of the reinforcement over that area so we're applying the easy least chemical release agent all the way over the surface of the inside of this part and very importantly this time around on the flanges as well we'll be applying two applications of the chemical release agent and then we'll be following up with two coats of wax making sure on this occasion that we thoroughly wax the flange where you can see the oppor molding meeting the lower molding and we've got this gap here we need to thoroughly fill that with a wax fill it to prevent the tooling gel coat from running under there and sticking so we just put in a large bead of wax and then smooth it out in just the way we've been doing elsewhere so if we just take a quick tour now of what we've done before we put the gel coat on we've got release tape over all of the catch mechanisms we've got any interior holes we filled with release tape again and we've just cut those to be nice and neat on these areas where we've got a bit of undercut on the actual steel of the bonnet we've completely filled that with fill itting wax as we did with this awkward corner and you can also see how we finish that middle edge okay so we've just mixed up a new batch of the tooling gel coat and we're just going to apply this all the way over the surface of the inside of this mold just like we did on the top mold again we're going for that target naught point eight millimeters of thickness which is a reasonably thick brush application now that the gel is cured we're just going to put down another coupling coat exactly as we did before here again we're using the 225 gram glass but another excellent option for the coupling coat is something even lighter like a couple of layers of an 80 gram so the coupling coat is now cured off and it's time for the main reinforcement again just like before we'll be applying all of the reinforcement and the tooling resin in one session we'll be using four layers of the 450 gram chopped strand mat so that's the underside of this mold finished so we'll allow this to cure fully overnight and then tomorrow we'll be trimming these and separating them this moulds fully cured now so we've marked up a trim line all the way around the edge equally spaced to where we know the bonnet comes to and so now we're going to just trim them apart to separate them we're going to be using a jigsaw cutter to trim the two molds and we're using a perma-grit blade which is a tungsten carbide blade in the jigsaw with the mold fully trimmed it's now time to some extent for the moment of truth and what we're going to do is separate the upper and lower molds so to do it we're going to be using a chisel and trying to insert it between the two layers of gel coat and then just tapping that in with a hammer I think we can hear the molds releasing so we're just going to insert lollipop sticks now sounding good so that's our upper body molding done now and it's just time to remove the the bonnet itself from this lower tool we'll be looking at doing this underside molding first because it's actually slightly more complicated than the upper molding so the first things that we'll do a pretty self-explanatory will strip off any of the Philippine wax that's on the underside of the molding we'll also be looking taking off any of the release tape and finally if there's any blemishes such as this one here and we'll just be filling some gel into those areas you'll find that a chemical mold cleaner like this will quickly any easily strip off the fill it in wax and any other contamination from the mold surface so this area that you can see here I think the paint actually wrinkled up on the on the underside of the bonnet and it's left this this blemish here so what we're going to do is chisel out all the paint and and some of the gel coat so that we've got some fresh material and then we're going to put some new tooling gel coat into this blemished area and sand it smooth so to make a repair like this what we do is we mix up just a small amount of the unimodel tooling gel coat but we add a few drops of wax additive and the wax additive prevents the gel coat from staying tacky on the surface where it comes into contact with air like a gel coat would normally do once the gel coats hardened up and you can see that the wax additive that we included is meant that there's no tackiness here then we can start wet sanding and flatting so we flatted this out nicely now using the wet and dry paper we're just finishing it off with a twelve hundred grit before we go on and use polishing compound which we can either apply by hand or as we're going to do using a polishing wheel although both of these tools are now pretty much ready to use as they are to give this a really professional finish what we're going to do on this top mold is give this a wet flat all over with the 1200 grit and then we're going to polish it all over using an intermediate polishing compound like this Mercker t10 the reason for wanting to give it that flat on the surface is if you just catch the reflection here of the light you can just see very very slight texture to the surface and that's partly print through from the chopped strand mat underneath and other just surface imperfections on the original bonnet you we've now polished both of these molds up to a high standard and so that actually concludes the first part in this video series in the next installment we're going to be looking at using both of these molds to produce the parts themselves using the resin infusion process really hope that you've enjoyed this video for more information or to purchase any of the products that we've used in this video please visit our website easy composites code at UK