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Carbon Cover or Carbon Skin


taras

Which would you go for?  

25 members have voted

  1. 1. Which would you go for?

    • Cover
      4
    • Skin
      21


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I had an interesting conversation with Octet the other day.

He showed me pictures of 350Z carbon interior from the US and asked if I could do it.

As it happened, I was in the process of having my interior skinned in carbon fibre.

Note: We are talking about REAL carbon fibre here not vinyl.

 

So after looking at them, I pointed out that they where covers which fit over the panels.

My thoughts on this are:

They're quick to make for mass production but fit will vary ever so slightly and will stick up approx 3mm.

It is reversible meaning you can take them off if you change your mind or when you sell your car.

However if you skin an original part, it'll be flatter and would have very little fitting issues.

But it would be a permanent change and also takes much longer to make.

 

Why not make new replacement parts in carbon? Well because it's simply too hard to replicate all the small fixings which holds the complicated interior together which is why many companies makes covers instead.

 

So if cost was about the same, which option would you go for?

 

Ray

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I think there is a very thin line between what is tastefull and what looks yuk.

They will need to be the perfect match of high quality.

I recently imported a rear strut bar complete Carbon cover kit from the states.

Cost the better side of £300 with tax ect.

In the picture it looked great.

When I got it I found it was very ill fitting and because is was carbon and used sticky tape. It would not bend to the contours of the bar.

It kept popping off and creaking when going over every bump.

I ended up ripping it all off and binning it.

I will prob get Taras to wrap it like the rest he has done!

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Thats the only issue with covers.

Becaue it's not made off an origional part but a mould of the origional part, you depend on the mould to be exact for it to fit the same.

Carbon is very rigid. Bend it too much and the surface will crack. Make it thick and strong and it will not bend at all.

 

But with skinning, it'll require removal of the part and a few weeks waiting process.

Taste wise is questionable. Quite a few sports cars have carbon in dash so if skinned well, it does give an expensive OEM look.

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  • 3 weeks later...

so I've finally started taking off the interior bits off my car.

This is what we're going to have skinned in carbon.

20121009_172015.jpg

Watch this space because if this works out. I'll be doing it for the Z's too. B)

Ray

 

 

Watching this thread with interest B)

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  • 2 months later...

here it is. All finished. All apart from 2 small vents which I can live without skinning because they where such a PITA to do it was not worth the aggravation and the silly man hours to do those parts.

20121218_165040.jpg

20121218_165252.jpg

20121218_165054.jpg

I'll probably get a chance to fit this some time after xmas.

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well ive worked out that its a 4-5 week turn around and im going to price based on limited number of items on sq meter.

so something like this would be in the region of £550 + VAT

I'll do some number crunching in the next few days.

I have also gone against the idea of swap parts whilst because not everyones parts are the same or wanting the same thing. Rather let people send us their parts and i send it back when done.

Edited by RT-Performance
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I thought I'd mention that DannyBoy is also offering a cf skinning service as well (since I spotted that one prior to this thread).

However I'd personally rather swap as it's my only car and I don't want to wait potentially weeks without an interior, although I'd only like a few bits done (main centre console and probably doors in 'dry' cf).

 

Can't wait to see the parts fitted back in your car :)

Edited by RobPhoboS
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I forgot to mention that these can be done in different colours such as

silver, red/black, blue/black, yellow/black, red, green for an additional cost.

 

Regarding exchange based service, I am reluctant because there are many variables such as

-we may receive a part with broken fixings or marks which the next person may not be happy about receiving

-I do not know if everything is exactly the same between imports, UK and other models of the Z's.

-Some people have have additional or less features such as alarm lights, fog light switches, buttons etc... located in different places

-Not every one may want the entire kit done so we will be left with some partial loaned parts or not a complete set for the next customer

-If I have 10 customers wanting this done at one time I won't be able to provide 10 sets to loan out

... and so on...

 

However I can understand that not every one would like to drive around with missing interior parts for 6 weeks so maybe we can arrange some kind of discount lending or renting of parts from our breakers?

Edited by RT-Performance
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