Monday, June 9, 2008

Making a carbon fiber case for the Arduino

I've seen a number of tutorials online recently about how make things from carbon fiber, so I decided to try my hand at it. I wanted to make a carbon fiber case for my Arduino projects - I hope you enjoy!

First, I shaped a piece of artist's clay into the shape of the case:
















It looks a little like a cross between a bar of soap and a deck of cards:















Then I wrapped the clay in paper box tape to seal in the clay, followed by a layer of clear packing tape, to seal out the epoxy:
















This is what the finished case mold looks like:















And this is what it looks like on the brown paper I placed to contain the mess:















Then, I was ready to start laying the strips of fiber glass on top of the mold (you can also see the plastic cup full of epoxy sitting off to the upper right:
















I put about 3 layers of fiberglass down, followed by one layer of carbon fiber. After each layer, I used a paintbrush to brush on some epoxy, and then squeegied it out with a pancake turner:















I let it dry for about 2 hours, and then I was ready to pull the mold out:





























The nice part about using clay is that you can scoop it out easily, and pull the mold from the cast:














And voila! The finished carbon fiber case:

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