Ski Builders Forum

Hi,

I am using a thin fabric for making the design of the ski. I might change to thermosublimation on the topsheet someday, but not now.

As I am using carbon, the colors of the fabric fade if its put directly on the carbon. In the last 2 builds, I put a layer of white cotton fabric between, but to get a real white it would take several layers, making the ski unnecessarily heavy.

Does someone have a good idea what I could use instead?

Another option would be to press the carbon with white epoxy and peel ply first, and then add the design in a separate cycle. But every cycle more means more work...

One option would be to do a white screen print as a backing. That's the way a lot of graphics (signs/car wrapping etc) are done when the base colour is not white

how about tint epoxy?
you can buy white pigment. I don't think white epoxy can completely eliminate black color from carbon fiber but definitely should make substantial improvement.

MadRussian wrote:how about tint epoxy?
you can buy white pigment. I don't think white epoxy can completely eliminate black color from carbon fiber but definitely should make substantial improvement.

Hi,

read the last line of my original post :)

well I didn't sawiitt but why do it in two steps? multi steps as you mentioned complicated.
White epoxy could cover carbon fiber good enough. Also you can put more pigment into epoxy to make deep white collar.

I would go with white epoxy first in normal layup before try anything else. Maybe add between carbon fiber and top layer 2oz fiberglass to give additional layer in between

Exactly my thoughts. Exept for that: If I press the fabric with the graphics with whitened epoxy as well, it will whiten the whole graphics a bit I guess. I also want to press a topsheet on it, so if there are some parts in the ski where a bit more epoxy stays between the graphics and the topsheet the looks will really suck. Hence the idea of 2 steps.
The easiest way would be that nice thin layer I am looking for :)

@ chrislandy:
Searching for white screen print brought up stuff like t-shirt prints. Do you have an example or so? I am not a native english speaker, so I am having a bit of trouble to understand what you mean. Dictionary brought up way too much translations :)

Use an epoxy screen printing ink such as the Nazdar on the back (reinforcement side) of the fabric to do a flood coat.

In van/car signage, white printers are really expensive and a hassle to use. Typically on a white car/van the signwriter will print using their normal inks and when it gets stuck to the car the white acts as the backing and you can see the ink colours. If the car/van is not white then a lot of them will print as normal then screen print a white background on the back to let the colours show through.

This is from a CD printing company but the use is the same:

A White Flood is the coat of ink that is applied first to a CD/DVD face print. This flood-coat is often used with 4-color process printing. A disc is reflective silver in color. The White flood-coat acts as a base-coat or primer for the colors printed on it, recreating the effect of printing on white paper. Without the flood-coat background, colors may not be as bright or vibrant as they would print with the darker silver background.

http://www.hellmanproduction.com/artwor ... flood.html

You might try a thin layer of innegra fabric over your regular composite, supposed to have properties like kevlar, can be sanded without fuzzing and lighter than carbon and it's pretty bright white looking at the SUP boards made out of it

24Dave wrote:You might try a thin layer of innegra fabric over your regular composite, supposed to have properties like kevlar, can be sanded without fuzzing and lighter than carbon and it's pretty bright white looking at the SUP boards made out of it

I tried Innegra 6oz weight (I think it was 6oz at least) biax as an attempt at a durable lightweight alternative to a plastic topsheet. I basically pressed my top laminate as a layer of 22oz Triaxial glass, then the Innegra, finished on top with a thin layer of surfboard weight glass biax. Haha yes it ended up stiff as! But the actual Innegra was still fluffing along the edges while sidewall finishing even when between the 2 glass layers and when getting splitboard crampon hits it fluffs too, still the overall laminate feels very tough from an impact point of view. I used a bleeder cloth and soak layer on top so its quite a good ratio of resin/composite. Definitely it was quite a white background now too. Cheers, Rich

good to know it is still a pain to finish clean like kevlar, thanks for posting!