Restoring an old carbon fibre can...

The Pig's nine years old this month and the carbon fibre muffler's lost
much of the outer resin coating down to the weave due to sun/weather and
is looking a bit mottled and tatty.

Is it possible to get it recoated with resin, or at the very least, a
new carbon fibre outer shell installed over the old one? The rest of the
muffler is stainless and looks and works as well as new. Just can't see
myself paying a grand or so for a new one when the wear is only cosmetic...

 

new carbon fibre outer shell installed over the old one?

Working with CF is like fiberglass, this shouldnt be a hard task to do
I wouldnt think.. we did it on RGV's and my KR1S back in the day once
they had been downa couple a times.

 

You were repairing CF cans on your RGVs and KR1S' yourself 15 years
ago biggus ? Colour me skeptical.

No, working with CF isn't like working with fibreglass, to make a CF
component isn't just a case of getting a bit of CF material slapping
some epoxy on it and letting it set.

JL

 

You may be able to carefully sand back the resin until it's smooth and
recoat using clear coat, take that with a grain of salt though I've
not tried.

The Formule 1 / pipemasters guys in Tamworth definitely make carbon
clad cans from scratch (I had one of theirs on the bandit) so they
should be able to do a recoat, there's probably a pipe manufacturer
closer to you who could also do it. Geelong Carbon craft moved to the
Gold Coast I think, so that'd be marginally closer.

There's no reason you should have to get the can reclad unless the
labour cost to recoat it exceeds just getting it reclad

JL

 

I knew a bloke who was making his own carbon fibre parts for his bike
about 15 yrs ago. He was still a uni student at the time.

Nev..
'04 CBR1100XX

 

Yes, you can recoat it. Dark Clown did it to his Over Racing pipes when
they burned through on his TRX850.

Noice job.

justAL

 

Dude I was racing with made his up, then when mine hit the tar at end
of oran straight and had holes in em, I couldnt afford $340 for a
newy, so he suggested we cover it like he did with a few others. So
went round and we did it (he did it, I drank beer and stood there)

It was like a mattting sorta like glass but a lot more rigid and
thicker hard to explain.. no idea where he got it from.

Craig Jones had one of the first carbon fiber cans out there in our
days, but it collapsed 1/2 way thru first meeting without him fallin
off..

I got some photos of them round here, I'll dig em up..

 

Excellent. Now I just gotta find a local to do the job.