Carbon Fiber Door Handles

[extermin8tor]

Hi All,
Hopefully this will be of interest to someone. No doubt there will be someone complaining or giving reasons why this is illegal/kills small kittens.

I had a couple of weeks to kill so decided to skin my Polo door handles in real Carbon Fiber twill weave.
I bought a roll for $30 or so - then some West Epoxy for $40.


I started off by sticking down the carbon weave to the handles which I scuffed up with sand paper:




I should add that this process is the most important step. If you don't stick the edges down well and use too much excess twill, you will end up having to hand cut/dremel/sand all the excess in order for the handles to still pop back into the door trim perfectly.



I didn't have paint brushes in the bush so I used pop sticks and hospital supplies to mix everything.


As I was going to sand the epoxy and clear coat I didn't care that there were bubbles and imperfections


The tricky panel was the drivers side handle with the electric mirror switch. I laid carbon over the hole and then cut it with a scalpel after first layer of epoxy. Surprisingly it didn't crack.

The hand sanding took hours because I only brought 3 sheets of paper 400/800/1500 to where I was living for 2 months:


The finished results look mint to me, I took care to sand down with a block until they were flat as glass then spray some high quality clear coats. Sanding between coats I estimate about 4 coats each panel to finish and UV protect them.

I found the hardest part being the trimming back of the really hard to cut epoxy/weave with a scalpel as I didn't have access to a dremel tool.

No power tools were used in this project, everything was finished by bare hands (well wearing rubber gloves, lol).



I will post some more photos when I get back from this contract.

This was a learning experience and the next project should be flawless. I can always sand these panels back with a power sander and hit them with some epoxy with a paint brush for that glass effect. They already look pretty mint anyway and wouldn't notice they are factory.

Considering that my car is the Beats version, these panels fit in with the slightly sporty interior.

Next step will be to carbon fiber the radiator scuttle panel (complex shape) as well as potentially the bottom lip of the bumper (one day when I'm bored) - the splitter section on the Beats bumper I mean!.

Thoughts????

[nandoz_211]

Nice write up. Impressed with the final outcome, looks like a quality piece. I'd be keen to see how a front splitter would look.

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