Carbon Fibre refurb???

[Case S2R]

Since you say you are going to shoot it with an acrylic clear I assume you have quality spray equipment...

1. Sand the fender down with a Black and Decker Mouse with 180 or even 80g if you are carefull, only sand till the dust turns black.  Any farther and you will sand the "tops" off the carbon weave.  If you sand the tops the squares on 3k woven start to look like circles. (wear a mask)
2. Go back over the fender with 400g, any good clear will hide the scratches
3. Go buy a good (expensive) "Hi Solid" clear.  Standard clear can do the job but you will need more coats
4. First coat is to ID pinholes and fill em, wear a latex glove and rub the pinholes in with your hand.  Do not worry about rubbing the fender all over, fill the pin holes.  If you are good you will fill em and keep clearing to be finished.  Note: You can also use a black body filler to get pinholes as step 2b. but I can't tell you all the secrets
4b. Chances are you will need to let step 4 cure and sand smooth with 400/600. Sand out all pin holes
5. Shoot final clear (If you are a master you are done)
6. Sand Final Clear with 1000g pulling out all runs or nibs
7. Buff with a small air powered orbital with a white waffle pad (pulling out the 1000g scratches)
8. Buff again with a finishing glaze (use a dark waffle pad) pulling out step 7 scratches
9. Hand rub with a professional terry cloth towel and finishing glaze (pulling out step 8 scratches)
10. Now your carbon looks better than anything you have ever seen, and you will appreciate it cuz you have over 30 hours invested in your fender.
Take this list and your check book down to an auto body supply and you are on your way to being a carbon restoration master.

[jerryz]

Did it with,Thinners  1200 wet and dry, soap and water , elbow grease and spray can clear  4 coats each item .. the bike looks BRAND NEW now i am very happy with the results.

[lazylightnin717]

I snapped some crappy pics tonight and they don't do it justice. But who cares? Pictures are fun to look at!



The bike is red. Flash made it look all funky


After much debate, I decided to clear that son of a pregnant dog right in there


I'm happy with the way it turned out. A little bit of time, research, elbow grease and  go a long way. The only bad part is that the rest of the bike looks terrible now. It's a vicious cycle

[greenohawk69]

I use machine products.

You'd learn a ton with a 3M catalog at your disposal.

I agree with Ducpainter...you can still use a random orbital polisher for the final step.  Learned a lot when it took me 27 hours (3 separate times) to re-do the paint on my car.  I knew nothing when I started. 

[MonsterJax]

I know this may be a dumb question,  but the instrument cluster surround on my '99 M750 looks like fake carbon fiber.  It's really worn out from exposure, but I want to know if it's real CF so I'll know how to approach restoration.  It's so cloudy that it looks like a cheap fake right now.  I'm working on getting all the little things right on this bike, since I can't afford the big things...

[erkishhorde]

Post a picture of it.

[koko64]

I used a can of smokey clear that some use to smoke their indicator lenses. 

My carbon was turning a greenish tinge and this carboned it up again in color and restored the gloss and depth of the finish.

For such small jobs I'm happy to use canned stuff; but I'm a hack painter.