Has anyone worked ona carbon fiber panel??

[DaveT435]

My son has a carbon fiber hood on his car. It looks good but doesn't have that nice smooth finish that paint does. I assume it's some kind of apoxy resin that this stuff is in. I was wondering if there is any way to buff down the high spots giving it a more uniform, or smooth look.

[darkangelism]

It wasnt clearcoated over?

[DaveT435]

It doesn't look like it. I mean it has a shine...but it looks like just dried resin. I'll try and send a picture later. It has gradual high and low areas...not nice and flat and smooth..

[darkangelism]

ok, yeah I havn't detailed any, so I don't want to give bad advice, so wait for some others to give opinions, it might need to be wetsanded, I was just curious, the few carbon pieces that I have seen had a clearcoat, but not all of them are like that, but it would last longer if it was.

[DaveT435]

Thanks for tying If it's anything like the resin we used to use with the fiberglass body repair kids with the fiberglass matting I should be able to sand on it to knock down the high spots then finish the whole thing...Hopefully someone knows.

[Mike Phillips]

I've buffed out a ton of carbon fiber hoods and wings when I was at Meguiar's. We taught classes for all the Tuner Clubs and these guys were always bringing in cars with completely wiped-out, oxidized carbon fiber parts on thier cars.

Two kinds of carbon fiber,

• Coated
• Un-coated

The more expensive parts are clear coated like your car as that way they can,

• Provide UV protection for the polyester/epoxy resin
• Seal the surface
• Create smoother, top layer over the weave grain of the CF part

If it's uncoated, you want to be very careful about doing any sanding as you can quickly run into the fibers.

If it's coated, assuming there's any thickness or film-build to the top coat you can sand or just compound and flatten the surface out a little.

If it's uncoated, or straight either polyester resin or epoxy resin you'll want to continually maintain the surface after restoring or it will simply oxidize again.


Check this link for some tips and before and after pics...

Carbon Fiber

[WRAPT C5Z06]

Clear coated coated fiber would be treated exactly like clear coated paint.

[DaveT435]

Thanks Mike. I'm going to call and make sure it's not clear coated. It looks a lot like the hood on the Yellow Acura. They never do tell if that one was clear coated or not unless I missed something. It looks to me like the one on the Mustang and BMW were cleared. The BMW almost had to be with part of it painted like that...