Carbon Fiber

[kauai_paintball]

Well, ive been looing at all this ULE stuff, and its all made out of aluminum. so, alot of people want maximum lightweight equipment. just use carbon fiber! the stiffi barrel is the lightest barrel on the market ,, and is made from carbon fiber. they use carbon fiber in cars, as axles, and even they use it as valves, it can take explosions! someone should make a carbonfiber mainbody and rail, etc. although carbon fiber is expensive, its well worth it. if you made valves and tanks out of it, because of its tendency not to gain or lose temerature, it would make the mostefficient, consistant accurate marker EVER!!! aluminum is second rate in durability, and weight to carbon fiber. carbon fiber also, if machined right can flex, allowing for flexible bodys, and if your orings failed, it wouldnt screw your gun. i think somebody should start making a completely carbon fiber x mag. all te parts, except for the screws would be carbon fiber. could imagine a 95/4500 ci tank with a X mag, full with paint, and hopper, and air, only weighing 2 pouds? alltogether, the gun alone would be about 5 grams.
Its something for people to think about. (Hint, Hint, TOM!)

[WenULiVeUdiE]

Are you willing to spend 300+ on a body that cannt be annoed? It isnt worth it. Aluminum is light enough. If thats too heavy go lift some weights.

[kauai_paintball]

you dont need to anno carbon fiber, whats cool about it, is that its a weave of fibers, coated in a carbon resin, if you wan it anno'd, you still probably could, buy why do that when you can weave different colors of fiber together, nd make seamless, 3-d looking guns.

[tyrion2323]

Well, it couldn't be anodized, no matter how much you wanted it... Only aluminum can be anodized.

Also, why would we want a 3-d looking marker? The gun is already 3-d.

[kauai_paintball]

also, if you want your gun to stick out, every 3 fibers, someody could include a glowing fiber or two, your gun would literally glow!it could be made so well, that it could become transparent! try to imagine all the glowing threads intertwining like the insides of a terminator!

[Timmee]

I'd be happy with a 2 finger 45 frame in carbon fiber. Not because the intelliframe is heavy, but because it'd be neat.

[SeeK]

Originally posted by WenULiVeUdiE
Are you willing to spend 300+ on a body that cannt be annoed? It isnt worth it. Aluminum is light enough. If thats too heavy go lift some weights.

It's funny that I recall people saying this about the RT with all it's SS. Now everybody wants light.

[kauai_paintball]

youre right, the dimensions are 3d, but have you ever seen aluminum glow? you can coat carbon fiber with differnt resins, and it will look exactly like anodizing, if you use a metallic resin. carbon fiber is also better for sponsored teams, and pro teams, who want a gun that is reliable, dfast, light, and cool looking.

[mcveighr]

Its not cool looking, its ugly and expensive.

I don't know if they can get the right tolerences either.


They make car axles out of CF?

[Pacifist_Farmer]

I'm pretty sure youll find that due to things like wear and cost of machining, carbon fiber is "right out"

While it's great in some applications the multidirectional loads and stresses that would be applied would be extremely diffucult to compensate for

Also if I'm not mistaken, carbon fiber's color can be changed through dyes in the resin

[kauai_paintball]

if you dont like how it looks, then just request a dye in the resin mix.
And think about this, the stiffi barrel is the most beautiful barrel ive ever seen. period. could you imagine having all the black parts on your gun carbon fiber, and then saving weight at the same time. also, carbon isnt that expensive, if you made the outer case of the x valve out of it, and the bolt, then it would cost about 50$ more, and be more reliable, consistant, and lightweight.

[mcveighr]

Do it then.

There's still the tolerence issues.

[GT]

big problem:
there are not enough mag users in the world to compensate for the cost of the molds? I wonder how many bodies Nicad has sold. It would be a good comparison since a CF body wouldnt be cheap.

[Altimas]

If Carbon Fiber is so Strong then why do you have to put covers on Carbon Fiber tanks?

[WenULiVeUdiE]

HPA tanks are maybe half an inch thick. That is that is sperating you from 4500 psi of air. A flying hpa tank will be worse than a co2 tank. A tank cover isnt that much. And if you didnt have one who knows what would be of you tank right now.

Here are the problems:
Tolerance issues
Expenses
Colors
How many would be bought.

Carbon fibre just isnt cheap. It starts out as a fabric and is put into a pressurized oven until it becomes hard. If you think this is great idea, go for it. But dont expect to see a profit within the first year.