Carbon Fibre

[Wraith]

thanks ange but northern suburbs are too far

Not really...

Hell I've travelled from Melb. to Albury to pick up small bits of hardware...

All depends how badly you want something

[MatsHolden]

AutoCAD

Yuck.

[[OPCSRi]]

thanks ange but northern suburbs are too far

LOL! Good for me. Can i have the address to this place.

[Keep'emRunning]

..seriously, no one is going to reverse engineer or point scan an entire bonnet to cnc a mold for it

Easier to mod an existing one, and pull a mold from it 'old skool'... then use that to make parts with.

But if gav wants a part carbon laminated, there's ways to do it (eg vac bagging) but depends a lot on curvature, the draft angles involved, and type/weight of cloth used.

It's possible to do hand layup over the object in 3/4oz carbon/epoxy and coat it with 2 pack clear with good results, but as a result the part ends up larger as it's an additive process. And the lighter the carbon, the more expensive it's going to be (thinner tows)

Hence the popularity of carbon dipping...

[Wraith]

Yuck.

Maybe...but it's long been the industry standard in some sectors

A whole heap of new software packages have been released in the last 5+ years, alot from the same provider of AutoCAD (Autodesk) will be interesting to see which takes hold and becomes the future accepted 'norm'.

I was around in the day when CAD 1st appeared and slowly replaced the drg. boards...back then, I never would have thought AutoCAD would've grown into what it is today, if you think it's yuk now, I can tell you it was totally pathetic back then LOL...IMO it only started to get decent by version 2000, almost a decade and a half after it appeared...

Damn I miss the good ol drawing board...

[Wraith]

..seriously, no one is going to reverse engineer or point scan an entire bonnet to cnc a mold for it

Easier to mod an existing one, and pull a mold from it 'old skool'... then use that to make parts with.

That is exactly the way they would do it and it is the way precision high quality aftermarket CF bonnets are made...original scanned and then modified or restyled/shaped etc. - hence why I stated to Gman it'll cost a serious fortune for a one off doing it through a company like the one I know of...

Definitely better off doing it as suggested in your 2nd paragraph as a one off for yourself, only real prob is one way or the other there would be a compliance issue if it's for a street vehicle...so is it really worth the expense and effort in the end ??

[MatsHolden]

Maybe...but it's long been the industry standard in some sectors

A whole heap of new software packages have been released in the last 5+ years, alot from the same provider of AutoCAD (Autodesk) will be interesting to see which takes hold and becomes the future accepted 'norm'.

I was around in the day when CAD 1st appeared and slowly replaced the drg. boards...back then, I never would have thought AutoCAD would've grown into what it is today, if you think it's yuk now, I can tell you it was totally pathetic back then LOL...IMO it only started to get decent by version 2000, almost a decade and a half after it appeared...

Damn I miss the good ol drawing board...

Just hate using AutoCAD. Autodesk's Solidworks is much better! AutoCAD is slowly being taken over by the likes of Solidworks. Very slowly though!

[Keep'emRunning]

disagree.. almost all advertised eng. jobs ask for autodesk experience of one form or another, and with inventor and autocad likely to become one integrated product, it won't shift to solidworks/solidedges favour anytime soon

[Wraith]

Just hate using AutoCAD. Autodesk's Solidworks is much better! AutoCAD is slowly being taken over by the likes of Solidworks. Very slowly though!

Maybe for industrial designers Mat...

The biggest market/industry for AutoCAD is the building industry, ie. architects and consulting engineers...

The new kid on the block here is 'Revit'...there's a specialist version for all diciplines, it too is 'slowly' taking grip

Whether or not it takes over or not dosn't matter, not at least to the software supplier as both it and AutoCAD are from the same people - Autodesk...win-win for them...

[Wraith]

disagree.. almost all advertised eng. jobs ask for autodesk experience of one form or another, and with inventor and autocad likely to become one integrated product, it won't shift to solidworks/solidedges favour anytime soon

Exactly with the 1st part, as I've described in my post above...the engineering industry has AutoCAD as its mainstream CADD (computer aided design and drafting/documentation) tool and has been for approx. the last 14 years...

However I don't think Inventor and AutoCAD will become one...although that could happen 'long term' down the track if, when and maybe there's a new/different mainstream software package being used, eg. Revit, that's the way it's looking ATM and has been for almost the past 2 years now...

The GFC has had a large part to play in 'slowing' things down, but now as economies recover, it'll be interesting to see what happens