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Handmade Carbon?
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Ok, I know it's a little bit older add, but I saw one of Aegis Bikes adds in a tri mag and they said that they are hand made in the U.S. This got me wondering, how are they hand made? Do they just paint them and put them together by hand? Do they Hand weave each bike? (Is this possible?) I guess I'm just a little confused. Does anybody know the answer?
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Re: Handmade Carbon? [Ze Gopha] [ In reply to ]
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Curious you should ask: I had just done some research on composites back at the Uni.
Hand-making fiber things (carbon or glass fiber being two popular choices) requires quite some labor, is time consuming, but can be done - and it is quite "popular" for productions where the costs of an industrial process far surpass the man-hours needed for the smaller quantities ( or one-of-a-kinda prototypes ).
If done properly - like most things done by hand - results are better than machine-molding and machine-weaving techniques. But can also result in a total crap if regular me/Joe tries to.

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Re: Handmade Carbon? [wickert] [ In reply to ]
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But in this case it's a non-distinction. All carbon bike frames are "hand-made" in this sense. It's similar with hand-welded bike frames, all frames people on this forum would ever consider are hand-welded.


Gerard Vroomen
3T.bike
OPEN cycle
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Re: Handmade Carbon? [Ze Gopha] [ In reply to ]
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Composites construction requires a certain degree of handiwork. Even if I were to use a vacuum bag to compress it (yes, some people have used glass, books for flat panels, and even some have used electrical tape on other shapes; though it looks crude), a die to cut my fibre cloth, amongst other things, the things would still need a pair (or several) to make the components into a frameset.

I would not suspect anyone "hand weaves" the frames (as the woven material is woven in a loom). Most "woven" finishes are merely a cosmetic layer, as unidirectional graphite is the preferred material for most bicycle frame and wheel construction. Hand woven matrial would triple or quadruple the cost of a frame or wheel considerably.
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Re: Handmade Carbon? [wickert] [ In reply to ]
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actually, my brother and uncle - two schmoes working in a garage, have made all manner of very cool carbon fiber parts for SCCA racing sportscars and motorcycles, not too mention a pair of eyeglasses modelled on some ray-bans. working with CF in this manner is not at all unlike working with simple fiberglass. make a mold, lay the stuff in there, add resin and presto - you are a CF handcrafter. locally, guys have borrowed - ahem - sheets of prepreg CF from local yacht makers and made cool bike trailers, go carts, and other white trash stock car junk.
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Re: Handmade Carbon? [t-t-n] [ In reply to ]
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Damon Rinard's old site used to have the details of him building a CF bike posted on it. Not sure if it's still around. The basic process is very amenable to do it yourself garage manufacturing.
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