Carbon Fiber Pinhole Repair - Get High Gloss Mirror Finish Easy

Hi,

Highly requested tutorial here on how to fix some small pinholes you might still have in your carbon fiber parts after using prepreg, wet-lay up, resin infusion or vacuum bagging parts.

Note: this is a tutorial about fixing small pinholes not big resin gaps due to bridging in your lay up.

As good as you are with composites, it might occur to have some small pinholes in your parts. These are caused by air still being trapped while curing, using wrong curing cycles, wrong lay up, overlapping layers, moist, air leaks, bad airflow in your bag, not achieving full vacuum, ... The list goes on. Mostly these are problems that can be solved while making the same part over and over again and after getting a better understanding of the material and part geometry.

These pinholes can be very small and only get visible after sanding the part for the first time or after applying a layer of clearcoat, revealing small holes or air gaps in your part.

The way I like to solve this is using some 2K Clearcoat and filling the small pinholes by hand. This is done by putting small drops of clear on top of the pinholes and filling them with with the clear. After that you can sand them flat and repeat the process again if needed. Once you get most of the pinholes filled you can sand the part fully and proceed to a full heavy double coat of clearcoat applied by spray gun preferably. Sand the part again with a lower grit sanding paper and apply the finishing coat. If you are using a good clear and everything is applied well you should have a nice mirror gloss finish on your part now. If you are still not happy with the result or want an even better finish you can sand your parts with a 2000 or even 3000 grit sanding paper followed by some polishing work.

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