carbon fibre tube - how to clean before bonding?

[jaros]

Hi,
I am planning to bond (with epoxy) something inside the factory made carbon fibre tube, and i am not sure what to do to clean the molding release agent.
Cleaning with hot water and detergent?
Sanding?
Cleaning with acethone?
Other?
Thank you for your input!
Jaros

[kostantin]

Sanding

[Jyoder]

I taped the end of a strip of sand paper to a dowel and rolled it a number of times and then put the end of the dowel in an electric drill and ran that down the tube, with soap and water before/after. Just make sure the spin direction doesn’t jam up the paper. Worked great!

[kostantin]

I taped the end of a strip of sand paper to a dowel and rolled it a number of times and then put the end of the dowel in an electric drill and ran that down the tube, with soap and water before/after. Just make sure the spin direction doesn’t jam up the paper. Worked great!

Do you know what additive (s) are in the soap ? Silicon's ?! Parfumes ?! or other jokes ?

I would not even clean it with air of my compressor because I don't know if the air is free of oil.

Back to sanding

tks

Kosta

[Matteo V]

I taped the end of a strip of sand paper to a dowel and rolled it a number of times and then put the end of the dowel in an electric drill and ran that down the tube, with soap and water before/after. Just make sure the spin direction doesn’t jam up the paper. Worked great!

Do you know what additive (s) are in the soap ? Silicon's ?! Parfumes ?! or other jokes ?

I would not even clean it with air of my compressor because I don't know if the air is free of oil.

Back to sanding

tks

Kosta

Acetone only "smears" amine blush. Soap and water is best for removal of this contaminate. So yes, do start with soap and water, but use a low residue soap such as Dawn. If you can't get a low residue soap, just use water.

Wax remover would be the next step.

Then maybe alchohol, or just skip to the final cleaning step - acetone.

After the surface has been cleaned with the above steps, then sand with new uncontaminated sandpaper. Do not clean with anything after this step, even acetone. Your cleaning towels could possibly recontaminate the surface.


That said, I am 99.99% sure your point of failure, especially on a tube, is not going to be glue adhesion at the joint. It's better to just say "screw it" on the proper surface contaminate removal, sand, and slightly over build the joint to compensate.

[tomtom]

sand it

[Jyoder]

That said, I am 99.99% sure your point of failure, especially on a tube, is not going to be glue adhesion at the joint. It's better to just say "screw it" on the proper surface contaminate removal, sand, and slightly over build the joint to compensate.

That’s exactly where my early carbon bars failed as I did not clean the inside of the tube. The tube cracked and broke away from the inner “slug”. Zero failures after I started cleaning the tube.

[BalsaMichel]

+1 for sanding

Micha

[Matteo V]

That said, I am 99.99% sure your point of failure, especially on a tube, is not going to be glue adhesion at the joint. It's better to just say "screw it" on the proper surface contaminate removal, sand, and slightly over build the joint to compensate.

That’s exactly where my early carbon bars failed as I did not clean the inside of the tube. The tube cracked and broke away from the inner “slug”. Zero failures after I started cleaning the tube.

Metal inside? Thermal expansion can induce stresses in that case.

[jaros]

Ok, thank you all. I quess I will clean it first with hot water and soap, and than send it really good.
Jaros