Kevlar, carbon fiber & fiberglass pre-preg

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Scott Hanson by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <huil888-at-surfside-dot-net>

If anyone really needs to fabricate custom "scatter shields", etc, one of 
the easier (but not necessarily the cheapest) ways is to use sheets of 
material (carbon fiber, Kevlar, Nomex, fiberglass, etc) that are already 
impregnated with epoxy or other resins (known in the composite industry as 
"pre-preg"). Just lay up layers of this material up around a mandrel or 
form, drape a "vacuum bag" around it and pull a vacuum to allow atmospheric 
pressure to apply uniform, 360-degree clamping force, shaping the pre-preg 
to the form. Finally, heat the whole setup in an oven to cure it and you've 
got a very strong, complex shape without needing to handle or mix resins, 
catalysts, etc. The pre-preg can be cut with a scissors or sheet-metal 
shears, and the finished part can be trimmed using a router with 
solid-carbide cutters.

This is pretty much standard practice for fabricating composite parts for 
aircraft, race cars, skateboards, boats, snowboards, etc.

Do a web search for "composite pre-preg" and you'll get dozens of links to 
suppliers.

Scott Hanson