How do I restore show shine to carbon?

eric · Since 13 Jan 2006 1840 Posts XTreme Poster

Some scratches in my carbon foil wing. How do I get the show room bling?

Thanks
Eric

sleestack · Since 07 Dec 2006 182 Posts Land of the Lost Stoked

Rub it real hard with your ass cheeks. Shocked

Will a showroom bling shine make you or your foil preform any better?

Probably not.

I'm not talking about deep scratches either.

I can see only one potential benefit to this is if you were trying to sell it.

Scriffler · Since 03 Jul 2005 581 Posts LYLE Addicted

Just get some rubbing compound and a buffing pad on an orbital sander or polisher. Rub some compound on and start buffing. It is basically like polishing a surfboard. Depending on how deep the scratches are you might want to float them with epoxy and aerosil and sand them flush. You could get really fancy and brush on some west system 207 thinned with a small amount of acetone or laquer thinner. Then wet sand down to 600 and polish with rubbing compound. That is a ton of work to get out some scratches but you could make it perfect. I just fixed one with some huge scratches and I did that whole process including floating scratches with aerosil, I would say it was about 2 hours of actual work. I charged the guy 100 bucks and he was so happy his precious was nice and shiny again.

eric · Since 13 Jan 2006 1840 Posts XTreme Poster

^^^

thanks man! I ride a lot better with blingy wings

skideeppow · Since 26 Aug 2011 521 Posts Addicted

i had mine polished at an RV repair business that deals in carbon fiber. They look like new.

Nak · Wed Sep 13, 17 9:31 am

ldhr · Since 21 Jul 2009 1487 Posts Hood River XTreme Poster

https://www.compositestoday.com/2015/08/watch-this-guy-make-his-own-carbon-fibre-hydrofoil-and-kiteboard/

Scriffler · Since 03 Jul 2005 581 Posts LYLE Addicted

Simple, just mix it into your epoxy. I usually error on the side of adding a lot to too much. The more you add the easier it will be to sand. You could also use thicksil if you don't mind it being harder to sand. It is the same material as aerosil (finely ground fiberglass)but not ground as fine so it doesn't settle as much once it's mixed in. The grade thicker than thicksil is called milled fibers.

I wish I had taken pictures of my latest repair but I also mixed some black pigment into the aerosil epoxy so it now looks like black streaks in between all the carbon strings and you can only see it if you look really close. Without the pigment you will have big white to off white streaks once you fill in the cracks.

Next time I get a foil to repair through my shop I will try to make a short video , cause it really is easy once you know the steps.

Scriffler · Since 03 Jul 2005 581 Posts LYLE Addicted

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=c_e1NVuzDcA

This is how you do it. Too much work in my opinion. Every time I take a shaped blank to the glasser he convinces me to get it polished. It looks so good but fixing them sucks because you have to repolish to match. Sanded gloss coats are where it is at. Planning on making some YouTube videos about ding repair, will definitely do a foil one as soon as I get one to fix.