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I was just wondering what everyone thought of every day life style items being made of carbon fibre, for example the other day i seen a picture of a carbon fibre stapler. Is it totally necessary for it to be made of carbon, I suppose its a bit of a gimic as carbon fibre has a stigma of being amazing, awesome, and cool witch it is but what do you all think, should carbon fibre stay on the track or should it migrate into every day life ???
Have you thought your questions through thoroughly before posing them to such an audience? I would suggest thinking all of them through a few more times yourself, as I hope you can answer, for enlightenment purposes. That should be the case in general, as I see it.
A quick look around my bedroom reveals the following items made of carbon fibre:
Racing bikes x 2
Samsung GalaxyS case
Ballpoint pen
Sunglasses case
Old (as in disused) computer mouse
I can probably find a half dozen more if I got up out of my chair.
Carbon fibre for everything seems to be the way the cycling world had been going for the last 10 years (probably more). I got my first all-carbon bike (frame, forks, stays ect) in 2005 and they're great, especially for cancelling out road buzz. My day to day ride is still an aluminium frame cyclocross bike though, but even then it has carbon fibre front forks, seat post, seat, headset and handlebar stem. Just can justify the cost of a CF frame for something I have semi-fat tyres and heavy rims on.
Yes quite a few phone/tablet cases claim to be made of carbon fibre. I've seen wristwatches which claim to have a real CF inside - usually it's the backplate - the bit the numbers are printed on. Or sometimes they have a CF body.
I think generally it's just a gimmick - There are other items which use less light materials and are still usable. Similar with F1 really. Could you replace the CF parts with something else? Probably. But CF will be lighter, and will give an advantage there.
These days its the look of carbon fibre that enters our day-to-day world. With vinyl wrap for cars in 'carbon look' and that awful 'carbon look' abs plastic.
In terms of durability and weight, i do feel it should be used more.
My road motorcycle is having full carbon bodywork made from a company in the UK called Zero-Limits.
The reason i chose to ditch my normal plastics, and would recommend this to anyone else, are two fold:
I was going to have the bike painted, gloass black with the standard suzuki vinyl over the top, but in white (i'm really after black with white detailing you see)
The cost to have this done would be around £800-£900. Great.
However, full CF body work, dressed all wet will cost around £900, £550 for the petrol tank. The vinyl around £80.
The benifits i will recieve from going to carbon vastly outweigh the negatives.
:: A drop in weight improves (in generel) everything performance wise and fuel economy wise.
:: The carbon is a beautiful look and will not need to be painted, only the vinyls will need to be applied.
:: To repair crash damage i would only need to replace a pannel as you would normall, but instead of visiting an expensive painter, i would just need to order a re-cut of the vinyl detailings.
:: Lacquer damage is going to be vastly easier to repair, carbon is carbon underneath that clearcoat, not paint then primer then plastic. So in essence a lot toucher wearing than the standard plastics used.
Outside of motorcycles and cars however, i see no real need for CF given how cheap injected moulded goods are.
What would be the pros of having carbon cutlery? Door handles? Window blinds (actually, may look quite cool!) etc etc.
So in the end my answer is two fold. I would like to see less use of cheap fake carbon crap that we have to put up with, and more good used of well made carbon for more reasons than just 'it looks good'
I totally agree, their schemes to be lots of cheep imitation carbon fibre out there that gives the good real carbon fibre a bad reputation.
I found a pretty cool website that sells some cool carbon fibre stuff like pens as mentioned by one of you and iPad cases etc.
Composite cargo shipping containers have always been seen as a no-brainier. They are lighter weight, they are well insulated, and they are non-corrosive. Above is a video of a new composite cargo shipping container manufactured by a Dutch company. (Skip to 1min mark). This container is collapsible, which is an additional advantage.
To achieve anything, you must be prepared to dabble on the boundary of disaster.”
Sir Stirling Moss
I have carbon fiber-embedded strap on my watch, it's a custom one, does not come with the clock.
I must admit it's kinda hard sometimes, but it's very durable, shows no sign of degradation and wear, as opposed to the real leather (so far) and it looks race-ish. Costs more than the watch itself.
I have a carbon fiber racing bike as well. While it is very light and very stiff, I'm worried about crashing as, when it is subjected to more pressure than it can bear, it will break and be unusable. I've seen it happen.
