cutting carbon fibre

[warped]

As the title says.

How do people do it?

Am snapping fret saw blades left right and centre and it's getting expensive!

Cheers

[westie]

Hacksaw or jigsaw on med speed slow feed, metal blades

westwood

[bigred5765]

dremmel cutting disk

[bald eagle]

Whatever you do, wear a mask... nasty stuff to breathe in is carbon dust...

[Gaz_Stanton]

if doing any sort of volume it will need to be diamond blades. And these don't last too long either.
Quality carbon is not a nice material to work with...

[traffman]

As above carbon fibres a proper pig to work with .
I have the splinters to show , its the cf dust and teeny skelfs/splinters that you need to watch for .

[rowanp25]

lol skelfs! remember most ppl on here aint scotish

[traffman]

i know , good fun to confuse them.

[captain-codpiece]

I have never cut rc car parts, but when we used to cut carbon seatposts on bikes to size, we would use a hacksaw, but we would put some tape over where we were cutting, to help reduce the splinters and get a nice edge.

[Bugle]

Carbide rod saw blades that mount in a hacksaw works well, used for cutting ceramic tiles so hardware shops have them. You can easily cut out complex shapes with these.
Dremel and a diamond burr is good for cutting holes inside pieces. Diamond cutting discs on the dremel work well too for cutting straight lines.

Wear long sleeves and gloves or you'll get itchy arms, and the dust mask/eye protection ofcourse..

[warped]

cheers for the suggestions..

[Benh]

Originally Posted by Bugle

Wear long sleeves and gloves or you'll get itchy arms, and the dust mask/eye protection ofcourse..

Cannot recommend the long sleeves highly enough. Stupidly cut away with a Dremel and wearing a T-shirt. "Irritation" only works as a description when surrounded by loud expletives!

You'll be amazed by how much dust there is with the smallest of cuts too.

[ads0021]

Having made about 6-8 TC chassis over the years I suggest using a router with a copying bit. It leaves a very good edge and although people said that I would need to replace the bit very often, I'm still on my first one! The down side is that you need something to copy. For what I was doing it was perfect as I could copy most of the chassis and when I did the cell slots(or the bits I wanted to change) move the chassis forward and then copy the slots in the new position.

It depends on what you are doing but it might help.

[JJ The Boat Wizzard]

Originally Posted by ads0021

Having made about 6-8 TC chassis over the years I suggest using a router with a copying bit. It leaves a very good edge and although people said that I would need to replace the bit very often, I'm still on my first one! The down side is that you need something to copy. For what I was doing it was perfect as I could copy most of the chassis and when I did the cell slots(or the bits I wanted to change) move the chassis forward and then copy the slots in the new position.

It depends on what you are doing but it might help.

^ What A Good Idea After Reading This Im Going To Try Cut A New Carbon Top Deck For My Serpent And B44 WE Will See How It Go's
Any One Know Where I Can Get Some Cheap CF to practice Making Theese Decks Before I Move Onto Somthing More Complex

Ta

[adam lancia]

Originally Posted by JJ The Boat Wizzard

^ What A Good Idea After Reading This Im Going To Try Cut A New Carbon Top Deck For My Serpent And B44 WE Will See How It Go's
Any One Know Where I Can Get Some Cheap CF to practice Making Theese Decks Before I Move Onto Somthing More Complex

Ta

Practice on some G10 fiberglass (the white stuff), cheap and still functional.

[dodgydiy]

Originally Posted by warped

As the title says.

How do people do it?

Am snapping fret saw blades left right and centre and it's getting expensive!

Cheers

get a tile cutter blade for a coping saw, cut to length and fit to the clamps on your fret saw, works a treat.
i use fret saw set up like this, i also use diamond disks on a dremel, and also have a small cnc cutter which will handle parts up to 220mm in length and 180mm wide which gets used for repeat parts, expensive to keep in mill bits tho. have also used a tile diamond disk in an angle grinder for long cuts to get them accurate. best tool to have for tidying edges and minor trimmings though is 80 grit aluminium oxide paper

[makumba]

To keep dust down, keep the cut wet. This will make sure the dust clumps in a sort of sludge rather than fly all over the place. Whenever I have to drill it I use a drop of water right on the bit, when cutting it may be a little bit more complicated but that's the idea. Never had any problems with dust ever.

[Conrad]

Originally Posted by adam lancia

Practice on some G10 fiberglass (the white stuff), cheap and still functional.

Wheres a good place to buy fibreglass, anyplace online? Whats the torsional stiffness like compared to c/f?

[Chrislong]

Id be interested to get some G10 fibreglass too.