Carbon Fiber

I did my first try at painting carbon fiber. It came out as good as i can expect for my first try. I was brousing around at my local JoAnne Fabrics and found a molding mesh. It worked nice because you can mold the mesh to the piece, then i dry brushed silver through it.

does ScaleMotorsports have a web site?

thanks guys!

Some other tricks are to take a towel dampened with hot water to get the decal to
conform to the irregular shapes. ScaleMotorsports makes good carbon fiber, carbon/carbon and carbon/kevlar decals with good instructions on how to use them.

Mark

The foil trick sounds pretty good to me!! I think most people make some sort of mask and then cut the decal out. The alternative is to just make sure the decal is bigger than the piece and then just trim it after it's in place (this seems like a bit of a guessing game and maybe a waste of good decal...)

M.

I bet the solvent or solution would have made the difference. I will try it again with them. And no, it was not on flat paint. One more thing, how do you make your decals to fit? I took foil and pressed it onto the body. The foil takes perfect shape. then i would flatten out the foil and that would be the shape i would cut the decal into. It seemed to work ok, i think it is just a matter of practice untill I get it to work perfect.

-graig

There's two types:
- decal setting solution
- decal solvent

Generally they are available in the 'Micro' range of products, but I've seen them in other jars too (I think one was PollyS). The idea is that you put some of this on the surface of the model first, then lay the decal on top, then coat with more of the solution. You do this all with the products 'wet' and basically they cause the decal to 'soften' and snug down into the little details and crevices of the model. It will also allow the decal to conform to curved surfaces better.

Some things I'm still learning:
- I *think* the 'solvent' is just a stronger form of the 'setting' solution. It really makes things soft and chances are that if you touched the decal it might rip or fall apart very easily. The idea is to put the solvent on and then just LEAVE IT ALONE until it dries. It might cause the decal to crinkle up a bit, but JUST LEAVE IT ALONE and it will level back out and conform to the surface.
- either one of these will soften the decal quite a bit. So, make sure the decal is in place and don't be moving it around a bunch once you've got the solution on it. Chances are that the decal will tear.
- I've heard that you can use household vinegar and that it will give you the same results. I tried it once and it seemed to work OK.

About your bike:
I don't suppose you're putting the decal on a surface that was painted with a flat/mat paint? If so, that's probably your problem because decals don't sit on flat paints very well. Judging from your prior posts and the type of model (there's not a whole lot of flat paints on a racing bike...), I doubt that this is the issue, but I thought I'd ask anyways.

Hope that helps... If not, keep asking and perhaps someone else here will have the correct answers...

M.

I couldnt tell you what brand they were. As far as being realistic if you get 1/24 for a 1/16 I think it looks better. No i didnt use a setting solution, what exactly is that? I have seen the screen method done. It does seem to be easier if anything. But when you get into curvy parts its stinkin imposible, unless you glue the screen down to the part.

Hmm...

What brand were they? Did you use a setting solution?

Alternatively, some people don't like carbon-fiber decals because they don't think they look 'real'. The carbon fibre weave is usually more fine and subtle than is represented on decal sheets. I've seen a couple of models where guys have simulated carbon-fiber with paint rather than decals. I'm not totally sure of the technique, but basically they paint the part black, then spray dark gold/bronze color onto the part through a screen of some sort. The 'screen' filters out most of the paint and makes a nice pattern on the black that looks pretty good. It's hard to describe, but the results certainly look good...

M.