SlimBB4

after a recent "fender bender" my car is in the shop for body work and paint. i purchased a brand new Seibon carbon fiber hood.

my original plan was to leave it unpainted but i decided that i want the hood paint matched to the rest of the car.

when i told me body shop guy this he told me that the hood painted i will be able to see how uneven and wavy carbon fiber hoods are. he also said that it has pin sized holes in it that will be visible after paint. he also said that with heat on the hood it will cause it to warp slightly and that will be much easier to notice with the hood painted.

anyone on here have experience painting carbon fiber hoods or own painted carbon fiber hoods so that i can have some first hand opinions and advice?

thanks in advance
_zac

Eyger

WTF, this guy sounds like he just doesn't want to do it.

-The hood isn't going to be uneven and wavy. The twill of the fabric when it goes into the mold has nothing to do with the surface of the hood itself.
-Why he believes that there will be pin sized holes in the hood is beyond me? Most if not all carbon fiber hoods are vacuum bagged. Which means all of the air bubbles are sucked out of the mold. What causes pin sized holes? Air bubbles. Any 'pin holes' if there REALLY are any, can be filled in with a good polyester primer, or 2k primer. then sanded down and painted.
-I've never heard of a CF hood warping under heat, I mean, I don't know about the details, I donno, maybe it could warp if it's under extreme heat and pressure of some sort. the hood should not be getting hotter then a hundred or so degrees right? I wouldn't worry about it.

If it were me, I would look elsewhere for another shop that'll do it.

BTW, people paint carbon fiber hoods all the time. Do you think that if these were really problems that people would keep painting them?

precisionsc54

If you have a cheap hood then yes the shop is correct. If you have a quality hood then no hes wrong. Really depends, I would have to see the hood first hand. Safe bet is to shoot it with some 2k primer then block the hood. This will even it out and fill any pin holes if there are any. I have seen hoods that were wavy after being painted and I have seen some that looked like a metal hood when painted. Really depends

n3h3bkau

Definitely depends, I shot some 2k primer and evened the thing out. Strangely enough after the paint completely dried I can still somewhat see the weave of the fiber under the paint and primer. Shitty deals.

Gotta redo mine.

93monsterbubble

shop is kinda right and then again they probably don't want to do it either. i know i try my best to turn stuff like that down at work. on the side sure, not at work

cmerce

I've had a VIS (Seibon) hood on my eg for 4-5 years that has been parked outside and you wouldn't believe how shitty it looks now. I should take a picture to show the degradation of the cheap polyester resins that they use. Have you looked at the back of your hood to see that it's made from chop strand fiberglass; the cheapest **** you can use to make anything. Chop strand is used for boat hulls and canopies for trucks. The body shop has a point because they have dealt with aftermarket body part installs. All body shops know that even aftermarket stamped metal reproduction parts don't fit right. Back when body kits were cool (2001) and I had one, no body shop would touch it without charging me a fortune.

aristro

iTrader: (4)

Just about everything in this statement is wrong.

Seibon hoods are not bagged. Hell the carbon never even sees the molds. When seibon and vis (the same product made in the same factory so they are going to be the same) make hoods they essentially make a fiberglass hood from the mold with no vacuum in an open air facility. Then after the hood is put together, then they take a layer of carbon and overlay the hood then clear coat. That is the only way you can make carbon stuff with no vacuum and have little or no air bubbles. The only hood manufacture in our market that has vacuum infused or even just bagged hoods is ait racing. you would be surprised who uses the cheapest of the cheap manufacturing. Spoon sports, varis, J's Racing, and many more use the same manufacturing technique as Vis and Seibon. You are pretty buying a 90% fiberglass and resin part and 10% carbon. This is also why if you take a seibon carbon hood and fiberglass hood and weight them. The carbon hood will weight more than the fiberglass hood. they are adding weight by overlaying the fiberglass with carbon and adding clear coat. That is why YES they have pin holes in them due to the overlay process. A good primer should fill the holes. Heat will warp your hood. The only reason is most carbon manuractures in china and japan use very cheap resins and even cheaper clear coats. They use a general purpose polyester resin. These resin have a shrink rate which will cause the hood to warp. It is a little harder to paint over a carbon hood cause you are painting over a clear rather then a gel coat.

You said the twill fabric has nothing to do with the surface of the hood when it has EVERYTHING to do with the surface of the hood. Since they don't use vacuum there is less surface on the hood. Most affordable infusion parts use a polyester gel coat and VER resins. The VER resin will not shrink but the poly gel coat will shrink. This is a good picture to show what I am saying. As you can see on the carbon roof in the bottom left corner it looks like lines in the surface. That is the clear gel coat shrinking around the twill carbon creating the surface above.



Nothing against what you said but I just needed to clarify what you stated.