I have another DIY project in the planning stage and I've been trying to gather as much information on the subject as I can before starting my prototyping experiments.
I need to know the correct type of resin to use in order to Carbon Fiber Wrap a couple of the left over take-off rifle barrels I have in my storage closet. I want to use those two take-off barrels as Guinea Pigs before ruining a perfectly good barrel that I can actually use.
I have reached out to some of the manufactures of these outrageously expensive barrels to ask the exact type of resin they use and where I might get my hands on some but there are only a handful of these Carbon Fiber barrel wrapping businesses and since they have the market for such things pretty much to themselves I get the distinct sense that they are reluctant to share such information with a home gunsmithing do-it-yourselfer like me or you. Imagine if the gunsmiths learned that although it may have taken engineers and rocket scientist to initially figure it all out -having figured out the Carbon Fiber wrapping process- it turns out that it really isn't that hard to do. Keeping everyone in the dark about it essentially would mean keeping profit margins high for the handful of manufactures. Incidentally, it took engineers and even some Rocket Scientists to figure out how to advance modern firearms and now here we are with home gunsmiths and actual gunsmiths doing the same thing. This leads me to believe that the same is most likely true of Carbon Fiber wrapping a barrel.
For the most part, the information available on the internet has to do mainly with marketing hype from the few manufactures that make and sell these barrels. Little is mentioned about the actual name, type or sources of the resin they use. I can get the correct type of Carbon Fiber from alot of sources; even on Ebay. I can even rig up a winding jig with my metal lathe but, it's the bonding agent that I'm looking for.
Can any of you guys out there in Cast Boolits Land shed any light on this for me? I've read as much as I can on the subject from the actual experts and, far to much from the self-proclaimed internet "Experts." I'm finding that like with my Swiss K31 re-barreling project, when I went looking for information in the forums and chat rooms where I thought that info could be found, the Na-Sayers were falling all over themselves for the chance to tell me all the reasons that their self-assigned "Expertise" dictated that such a project should be left to the experts alone. I don't recall any such dream-killing replies here on the Cast Boolits forum. When I did post that K31 project all I got was alot of interest in the subject so, here I am again posting this DIY Carbon Fiber Barrel wrapping project. If you have any helpful information you can share about the correct type of resin to bond the Carbon Fiber to the barrel and to itself, I'd appreciate it.
If I had listened to those self-appointed "Experts" I wouldn't have become one of the few DIY people on the planet who had successfully rebarreled a K31 Swiss rifle and re-chambered it in the 6.5x55 Swedish cartridge. I'd like to be among the first who has successfully and safely Carbon Fiber Wrapped his own rifle barrels too. I just need to find out the exact type of resin to use and where to get it.
HollowPoint