Working with CF

jylong_away

Well-Known Member
Hi all!

Am getting some CF material from Tyson at BlacksiteCF (who has great customer service, btw - I highly recommend).

He did suggest that if I wasn't familiar with working CF, I should probably get some advice from more experienced hands, to prevent the material from delaminating, etc while I work it.

I plan to make some rings, first up, using the same 'bare bones' method I've used to make knives so far - Drill holes around a template to form an 'outline', cut out the blank using either a hacksaw or coping saw, and then hand filing/sanding to finish.

Does anyone have any particular tips/tricks to making CF work for them? I've worked with G10 and Micarta previously, with no problems.

And yeap, I have eye/breathing protection, and will probably be wearing latex gloves for this work! :)

Thanks!

Dave
 
Working CF is nothing short of NASTY! Imagine the finest black talcum powder you can, and it get's EVERYWHERE. Then next issue is your tools...it will quickly dull any cutting tool you put to it. The delaminating you mention will usually happen if you overheat the material...generally from trying to horse it too much on a grinder, or trying to jam a drill bit through it too quickly. I know you said you have protection....just make darn sure you use it when messing with CF!
 
gloves mask and eyes first try to work if you can wet CF is a triple threat to your health
 
Ed:
I've pretty much decided to go up to the rooftop of my building to work this stuff - after all the stories I've heard, I'm not going to try it in an enclosed space! Thankfully, I imagine that CF is somewhat easier to work than 6/4 Ti, so it shouldn't take that long.

With regards to generating CF dust, I'm guessing it's a no-brainer that grinding with belts will generate the worst dust. What about other methods like cutting(hand saw), filing(hand files) and hand sanding? Does drilling tend to generate fine particles as well?

Dave
 
Anything you do with/to CF will create that super fine dust....by hand or with power tools. Even having the shop vac nozzle right under the grinder doesn't seem to help much.

Doing things "wet", where you can, does help.
 
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