Carbon Fiber targa, Well in look at least Options

[kfish914]

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.

[kfish914]

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.