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Posted by: kfish914 Nov 11 2013, 10:00 PM

So I have this extra top that I was going to make a poor mans Saratoga top. After coming back to my senses I was going to sand it own and paint it to match. It had already been painted by the PO. I have always like the look of the vinyl sail panels and I thought the paint top may look odd.

I was at a car show this summer and saw a car with the carbon fiber wrapped top and it looked like a good mix of smooth and texture. Here is how it went.

The before


Sanded and Primed


carbon fiber wrap


finished


Even fit well into the groove


Not bad For $25 bucks and a lot of elbow grease. Plus I still have my original top that is still in great shape.

Posted by: stugray Nov 11 2013, 10:10 PM

link?

Posted by: kfish914 Nov 11 2013, 10:14 PM

I picked up the wrap from evil bay

Posted by: PanelBilly Nov 11 2013, 10:18 PM

Looks awful nice. How did the rear edge turn out?

Posted by: tadink Nov 11 2013, 11:14 PM

did you primer the top first with the 3M stuff? I tried this on my rear deck lid and it all peeled off at 75mph!! LOL

also - did you use a heat gun on this? how'd you work out the wrinkles? full report required please!

looks great BTW!!

thx

td

Posted by: racerbvd Nov 12 2013, 12:04 AM

I know someone who actually makes the carbon fiber tops, very light & cool..

Posted by: steuspeed Nov 12 2013, 12:50 AM

A CF top would be way cool. Link?

That's a great idea to wrap a top too.

Posted by: CptTripps Nov 12 2013, 01:09 AM

I forget who it was, but someone had a CF hood and trunk on a yellow 3.6. THAT was hot!

Posted by: carr914 Nov 12 2013, 05:59 AM

Getty makes Carbon Fiber Hood & Trunk lids - I don't know about Tops thou

Here is a CF Front Hood

Posted by: JmuRiz Nov 12 2013, 07:37 AM

Very Cool!
I wish there was a way to make a structural one like the GT cars that bolts in (and use a CF top) AND allow for the stock unit to be used when you want to take the top on/off.

Posted by: badmiata Nov 12 2013, 09:56 AM

Looks GREAT!!

Posted by: kfish914 Nov 12 2013, 07:37 PM

I agree a real carbon fiber top would be really cool. I probably could never afford one.

I did use a heat gun on the low setting. I will be honest it would have been easier if I had a second pair of hands to help with pulling it out and stretching it around the corners.

Basically it is pretty easy to do. I started out by watching some youtube videos and did what they did. I used a water bottle to spray the primed top and the sticky side of the wrap. This keeps it from sticking too much while you work it into place. Then using a plastic squeegee like you would use for window transfers and a rubber squeegee like what you use for screen printing t-shirts. I started in the center and slowly worked my way out to one corner then to the next and so on, all the while hitting the surface with the heat gun to activate the glue on the wrap. The key is to apply enough pressure to get the air and water out with out tearing it. My understanding is that if you don’t get all the air and water out and not heating it as you go, is why you may get lifting of the wrap afterwards. Of course we’ll see what happens once I supply some air pressure at speed.
Working the edges turned out to be the most challenging part of it getting it to wrap with out bunching up. Cutting little reliefs with a razor blade helps like you would when wrapping carpet around a speaker box.The heat gun will be your friend at this point, as it will allow the wrap to stretch over and around the corners. Also if you have a helper with pulling on the wrap while you heat it will also help. Then I just went over the entire surface again with the heat gun just to make sure everything was well heated and tight. The wrap will shrink with heat so be careful of that.

The back edge did not turn out as well as I would have liked. It was hard to get it to shrink around the little edges. I did talk with a guy today that gave me some tips, like using binder clips to hold the wrap in place as it cools to form better to sharp edges. I will post a picture of what it looks like now but I am going to rework it with some more heat and the tips to see if I can get it to look better.

Here is a picture of the back edge as it is now. As you can see I nee to work a some wrinkles out yet.


The tools I use to work the wrap over the top


I hope this clarifies a little on the process I used to wrap the top. I think it looks better even in person in MHO.

Posted by: CptTripps Nov 13 2013, 02:13 AM

Is that the 3M 1080? Looks great. I've got a ton of samples and was thinking if do a few parts here and there in CF. Well done!

Oh, and +1 for a second set of hands. I'm surprised you did that well without them!

Posted by: kfish914 Nov 13 2013, 09:41 AM

Thanks everyone.
It was not the true (real) 3M product, but a knock off. It was sold as "real carbon" wrap. The 3M stuff was twice as much and I figured for $20 bucks for the wrap and $5 worth of sand paper, I would do the cheaper stuff so if it didn’t work out I wasn’t out much.
I have to say I like the stuff, you can wrinkle it all up and just apply some heat and they come right out. I wrapped my cell phone cover for practice first. Now that was a b.... to do the corners on it. It turned out pretty good after I really worked it over making several relief cuts to get it to roll over the edges.

I’m going to do the gauge bezel. It needs to be repainted anyways, and since the center part of my center console has seen better days I was going to make a new insert and cover it as well. Keeping the original piece as it is for now and recovering it later with black vinyl. I think this will tie in nicely since the car is black with flares and interior is the Camel (Tan) color.

Posted by: tadink Nov 14 2013, 04:14 PM

Looks great -

I did my rear deck lid but used a hair dryer on high - it is NOT hot enough! I was driving on the freeway and wondered why I was being chased by a CF balloon! Had to pull over and rip the sh*t off - total loss for that material. But as you say, it is not that expensive.

heat helps! +1 for the 2nd set of hands. I'll try again in a bit.....

td