vandeda
new member
Reged: 12/17/04
Posts: 14
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Curiosity has gotten me. Carbon fiber is great, as long as you don't damage it. Even a small scratch can lead to catastrophic results if it goes unnoticed.
Doesn't a nude frame leave the frame a bit more vulnerable to damage? I know clearcoat itself chips and scratches easier, but think about all the chips that the clearcoat obtains over the years of riding. Without the clearcoat, the bare carbon parts are absorbing those impacts from rocks and other debris.
OK, so there a bunch of nude frames out there (including my own) that haven't had any problems. But ... it's just a curiosity question that comes to my mind from time to time ...
Dan
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Mike
contributor
Reged: 12/25/03
Posts: 101
Loc: Oregon
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My wife and I have nude and painted Calfees. It's been our experience that the carbon is significantly harder to scratch than the paint itself. As such, paint (or clear coat) is really an esthetic thing. The only durablilty benefit of a painted frame is that you don't have to put a protectant on it.
mike
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skuke
captain
Reged: 12/22/03
Posts: 322
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Quote:
vandeda wrote:
Curiosity has gotten me. Carbon fiber is great, as long as you don't damage it. Even a small scratch can lead to catastrophic results if it goes unnoticed.
I have some small gouges (~3-5mm each and shallow) on the right chainstay from dropping the chain due to a mis-adjusted derailleur and a small gouge (~6-8mm and shallow) on the left seat stay from a minor crash. Both are about 10 years old (bike was fairly new) and Craig Calfee looked at them and told me not to worry about it (in regards to premature, catastrophic failure). So I didn't and everything has been fine so far!
But then again, I do have a friend's broken CF fork in my possesion; www.geocities.com/skuke89/fork.html
Past performance is not an indicator of future results. Your milage may vary.
yada yada yada...
--------------------
Skuke
95 Carbonframes Tetra Pro
92 Bridgestone MB-1
90 Moser 51.151
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Lon
sage
Reged: 12/20/03
Posts: 595
Loc: Pittsburgh, PA
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" It's been our experience that the carbon is significantly harder to scratch than the paint itself. As such, paint (or clear coat) is really an esthetic thing. The only durablilty benefit of a painted frame is that you don't have to put a protectant on it." said Mike.
That is essentially what Craig said when I asked him the same question. He said that carbon is very strong and much stronger than paint is.
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flythebike
captain
Reged: 08/26/04
Posts: 272
Loc: N. Virginia, USA
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That looks like one of those early Kestral forks, like from 1989 or so. Am I right, or is that just wishful thinking?
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skuke
captain
Reged: 12/22/03
Posts: 322
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Quote:
flythebike wrote:
That looks like one of those early Kestral forks, like from 1989 or so. Am I right, or is that just wishful thinking?
From the mid 90s. I have the same fork on my Tetra Pro. It came as OEM from Calfee (Carbonframes)
Edited by skuke (03/22/05 04:07 AM)
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Insightdriver
captain
Reged: 03/07/04
Posts: 472
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It is actually incorrect that a small scratch in a carbon composite tube will cause a catstrophic failure. This is an urban legend type of thing going around. Scratches do not propagate through the structure like amorphous metals do. Those who think carbon composite frames are fragile are completely unaware of the much more demanding applications in aerospace where carbon composites are used because of their superior characteristics.
The only real durability differnce between nude and clearcoat is that the clearcoat is much more fragile than the underlying carbon and that nothing much sticks very well to carbon composites.
Note that I use the term composite because nothing is made of pure carbon fiber. The expoxy that bind the fiber together is also a critical part of the performance of the matrix. Next time you take a flight you had bettter understand that a greater proportion of every new commercial aircraft is made of composite structures.
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