Carbon fiber Lotus 7 wings?

I know that some of you fine folks meddle in the arena of Lotus 7 clones. This weekend, while accidentally buying a 50gal air compressor, a bandsaw and a drill press,I got to talking with the seller. Seems he is a bit of a Brit car fan. Also, as it turns out, quite the craftsman.

While collecting some bits for the bandsaw, I see what looks like a 7 clone wing. Guy tells me to go ahead and pick it up. I was feather light. Carbon fiber as it turns out. Used the autoclave at a local composite aircragt comapny to build them. Nose-cone and cowl were also there.

He wants to sell these. He mentined e-bay, but I thought maybe one of the Canadian contingent might like to know about these. If I am not breaking any rules, I can put person in touch with owner.

The guys at locostusa.com would be all over this. He's not the first to do CF body parts for the cars, but they're usually in the UK.

Does he know a guy named Rutan?

that would be enough to push me over the edge into locost territory

accidentally buying a 50gal air compressor, a bandsaw and a drill press

I hate it when that happens

I picked up a carbon wing at the Caterham factory a number of years ago. Fully expected it to float away. The gentleman (I think has name might have been Cliff, but it's been too many years) said that they could only have the parts made for less than two weeks a year, since the F1 teams kept the autoclaves busy the rest of the year, and were willing to pay in cubic dollars.

You know you don't have to autoclave them, right?

A good vacuum bag set up + a some creative way to bake it.... It's all about making sure exess binder doesn't make it weigh too much + getting the heat right to set the best binders you need.

I saw a pretty cool large "oven" a guy fabricated for his powder coating shop. It was pretty much an insulated drum (larger than a 55gal drum- picture the shape), with a well distributed gas burner on the bottom. With a proper bagging set up, that would work well.

Very grassroots possible, with the proper creativity.

Knowing how cheap some of the ebay stuff is, I'm actually surprised to not see more carbon at the challenge.

Send me some contact info, I'm interested. I'm building a 7 replica and I need a nose cone and the wings/fenders.

breault DOT andy at gmail

Thanks

I have an extra nosecone. It was made by CMC and actually looks pretty good. It is the early one they did, not the taller later one. It looks like an exact clone of an actual Lotus S2 nosecone. $150. I do not want to mess with boxing this up, so, pickup or make arangements to get it boxed/shipped.

It really isn't that hard to work with carbon fiber. With pre-preg carbon fiber, you are supposed to bake and put the stuff under massive pressure which is really hard to do without an autoclave. You can do it like alfadriver. It won't be as light as possible but it will still be pretty light. The nice thing about pre-preg is that it goes out of date for structural applications which means aerospace companies throw a lot of it a way meaning if you know some people you can get it for free. It is still good for body panels and such. The thing that sucks about pre-preg is you need to keep it in a freezer and also if you buy it new it is very expensive. I have had a lot of luck doing wet layups and vacuum bagging the carbon fiber. It is a lot less expensive.

In reply to 96DXCivic:

Wait- you are in Huntsville, right?

Like NASA country?

What are you holding out on us???

I need to hang out near the dumpsters near you....

E-

Yup. I am in Huntsville. It is amazing what the government and contractors throw away or sell for very cheap at public auctions.