Carbon and glass laminate strips UK

flatfoot

New member
Very frustrated, cannot find a UK source of carbon and glass laminate strips. I am aware of the German and US suppliers.
Surely someone on the mainland stocks these? If you can help point me towards a supplier I would be most grateful.
 

briantodd

New member
I make my own, vacuum bag carbon on a plate of glass,then when almost cured after 20 hours or so place in the former to give final recurve shape.long winded but it's what's needed as Gordon's bow tuff is expensive to import.
 

flatfoot

New member
are you looking for carbon and glass fibre pre-preg? try easycomposites.co.uk/
Beppe - Thanks for info. through easycomposites.co.uk I made contact with Chris at carbonfibreworks. He is sending me a sample shortly and I will report back.
 

flatfoot

New member
Brian - Have you imported any GC-70-UCL please. If so I would be grateful to know what the all up cost is, including import fees etc.
 
Very frustrated, cannot find a UK source of carbon and glass laminate strips. I am aware of the German and US suppliers.
Surely someone on the mainland stocks these? If you can help point me towards a supplier I would be most grateful.

My business is called Eclipse Archery.
I am currently making all my own laminates and will be offering them for sale here in the UK once I get the website sorted out for it. In the meantime just contact through the website.
 

AndyW

Well-known member
Possibly a little out there but I have always thought that Tufnol (the material) would make a cracking limb and the company Tufnol may also do the other stuff if you need an alternate supplier.
 

AndyW

Well-known member
Tufnol is just a brand name for phenolic. It doesn't have the elasticity for a limb lamination.
Sure is - it's a cloth which has been prepregged with a phenolic resole which is then laid up into blocks and heat pressed and machined by some wonderful chappies in Birmingham. I did the R&D on some of the resins they tried out for different bits and bobs.
My previous post was a little misleading and you would be right if talking about a full limb but ( I meant ) strips used to make a full laminate would be interesting as it's a true cloth rather than just bits of glass mat/wool. It would look gorgeous fading out from the riser down the limb when polished.
 
Glass lams are not made with mat/wool - they are made with unidirectional fibers. This is a very different animal than chopped strand mat. Chopped strand wouldn't even make it to brace height. Cloth (woven fabric) also isn't strong enough for a limb lam. The fibers must be unidirectional. The carbon lams you see that are woven on the surface only have a thin layer of woven fabric (generally 0.010") the rest of the lam thickness is unidirectional carbon. The woven stuff is added for the 'look' as unidirectional carbon just looks like plain old black glass in a limb.
You need high elasticity for any material to use in a limb lam - hence why glass is superb in this application.
The only application for phenolic in modern bows is either as an I-beam in the riser, riser/nocks overlays or other 'decoration' in the riser. You can also make solid phenolic risers but they aren't my cup of tea.
 

AndyW

Well-known member
Thanks mikekeswick - never knew that. Just assumed the glass was made of mat, don't know why, just did.
 
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