DIY Carbon fiber barrel?

I believe my hells canyon and the benchmark carbons are sleeved with a tensioning shoulder nut at the muzzle. From my observations I can tell the muzzle is two piece. Both of my hells canyon barrels shoot great, and I believe this will be a much faster process, but more costly. Buying pre made cf tubes, vs cf strand/resin and your own labor, but time IS money.

Hells Canyons CF barrels are wrapped
 
Why the Kevlar? Each of these materials has good and bad properties - often to an extreme. Kevlar is tough and durable but not anywhere near as rigid as carbon. I can't see any advantages to it in a barrel but could certainly be missing something.
Thinking of one layer of kevlar over the cf in case of failure. I'd feel horrible if Ryan got hurt testing these :)
 
This is a cool project @Mram10us. I have a fair bit ef experience/know knowledge with this stuff but by no means an "expert".

I use this MAS epoxy on most of my projects. System 3 is good too. I have a fair bit of MAS low viscosity and slow here. How much do you need?
I ordered a small amount of two different high temp epoxies. I will test them out but if you have extra I would happily buy some to try or whatever works for you. I really appreciate the help
 
Can I ask why you want to do it yourself? As a learning experience? To save money? My experience is it's better to let others do the experimentation -- and I find I never manage to save money when I try to do it myself.
 
Twenty years ago I attended a seminar at GA TECH Univ about the future of composites and
the big new thing that never really happened for some reason was honeycomb made with carbon fiber.... fast forward.... Also the big new thing was going to be dirt cheap CF tubing because of huge economies of scale and would be replacing a lot of other types of tubing and pipes etc.
One of the things that has to be considered in any wrap is how you provide the strength in the linear direction of the tube. If all the threads are wrapped round and round there is nothing but the adhesive matrix to keep the tube from separating end to end. One option would be to place cross woven sleeves where the threads are at an angle or to wind the filaments up to one end of the tube and then wind back down to the other end creating a cross hatch which can provide some radial strength as well as longitudinal strength. For what it's worth some friends of mine that worked at Lockheed on the F-22 project said some of their procedures
and materials were developed at GA TECH. The only mass market CF tube objects I know
of are Arrows, Golf Clubs, and Bicycle Frame tubes. I still have a piece of carbon the size of a match-stick from the seminar where they had a display offering $100 to anyone who could break it with their hands. It feels no heavier than a wooden matchstick. Really amazing stuff.
There was a time when I used to hear the term "extruded" a lot in terms of carbon parts
but not lately.
 
Last edited:
The strand that you've chosen isn't pre-preg? One of the guys on our race team makes CF parts and he has mentioned what I was told back in college when I was on the human Powered Vehicle project, that both CF and Kevlar are very difficult to get to wet-out. Pre-preg solves that problem.

I guess if the resin applied isn't appropriate then it wouldn't matter if it was pre-preg'd.
 
Can I ask why you want to do it yourself? As a learning experience? To save money? My experience is it's better to let others do the experimentation -- and I find I never manage to save money when I try to do it myself.
In my experience, you can do anything you put your mind to. I want to save money and also make the contours and sizes that I like. Plus I don't have to wait for a barrel. I don't think it's that difficult once you figure out the epoxy and the carbon fiber material to use when you have a lathe an oven and a mill.
 
The strand that you've chosen isn't pre-preg? One of the guys on our race team makes CF parts and he has mentioned what I was told back in college when I was on the human Powered Vehicle project, that both CF and Kevlar are very difficult to get to wet-out. Pre-preg solves that problem.

I guess if the resin applied isn't appropriate then it wouldn't matter if it was pre-preg'd.
I bought different materials. Some have no resin and others are pre-preg.
 
Hopefully you have a follow rest for your lathe.
Turning a raw blank all the way down to a straw... doing a few inches at a time, and having to blend it all together when done will take days on a manual lathe.

That much turning generates a LOT of heat. Been there, done that. I'd be very concerned about generating that much heat as the tube gets skinnier. I can't help but think that stress might be introduced into the steel and the barrel warp- but I'm no metallurgist. This is one that I'd send out to another smith to be done on a CNC with coolant.
 
Pre-preg takes special processes to lay up. It does give that perfect balance of resin. It does need to be cured, maybe your oven will accommodate that?

I think this is an interesting project. I have liked the idea of a carbon barrel if the drawbacks can be overcome. Heat transfer with the resin is one of my biggest concerns. Epoxy is generally a better insulator than conductor of heat. There are some out there that address this.

If I can figure out how to ship it I could send you a bit of that MAS to try. I'm not sure of its thermal properties. It does work extremely well for layups. I have done a cedar strip canoe, automotive projects and have used it with the guns too. The carbon arrow/microbead layup I did in my Kimber was with some old MAS epoxy.

 
Hopefully you have a follow rest for your lathe.
Turning a raw blank all the way down to a straw... doing a few inches at a time, and having to blend it all together when done will take days on a manual lathe.

That much turning generates a LOT of heat. Been there, done that. I'd be very concerned about generating that much heat as the tube gets skinnier. I can't help but think that stress might be introduced into the steel and the barrel warp- but I'm no metallurgist. This is one that I'd send out to another smith to be done on a CNC with coolant.
Already turned down. My lathe with auto feed works fine on it's own while I throw the ball to my dog and run in before my timer goes off :) Took me a couple hours for 2 barrels, but I had no clue what I was doing with regard to min diameter.
 
Pre-preg takes special processes to lay up. It does give that perfect balance of resin. It does need to be cured, maybe your oven will accommodate that?

I think this is an interesting project. I have liked the idea of a carbon barrel if the drawbacks can be overcome. Heat transfer with the resin is one of my biggest concerns. Epoxy is generally a better insulator than conductor of heat. There are some out there that address this.

If I can figure out how to ship it I could send you a bit of that MAS to try. I'm not sure of its thermal properties. It does work extremely well for layups. I have done a cedar strip canoe, automotive projects and have used it with the guns too. The carbon arrow/microbead layup I did in my Kimber was with some old MAS epoxy.

The heat is not my biggest concern because I generally shoot till the barrel feels hot to the touch, at most. My primary reason is stiffness and weight loss. I would like to address heat though, just not primary. Open to ideas though. We will test all the above though as we go.
I'll pm you
 
Warning! This thread is more than 4 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.
Top