I have heard that most carbon fibre comes from the Baltic region. It is a mineral and is mined.The reason for the shortage is the A380 airbus .Their demand for carbon fibre is huge.
I'm sure there are others on this forum that can add to this or correct me if i'm wrong.
Cheers

Actually it is bicarbonate soda that is first mined and then bred with bran to produce "carbon fibre". This cross-breeding process is called "carbon dating" and goes back millions of years.

There are some skeptics who think it is made like this: pslc.ws/macrog/carfsyn.htm

There's a shortage?

yer it's because of those massive freakin planes, stealing our carbon fiber and pumping carbon emissions into the air creating global warming, thus ruining our wind. the bastards, bring back the tall ships arrr.
Yer it's the planes, there all carbon now, but i was talking to a guy at the place i buy mine from, he said that it's starting to drop in price because they make heaps more now for this purpose and we can steal what there not using..

I don't think the "carbon shortage" has anything to do with the A380. As far as I know only the wings of the A380 are made of carbon. The type of carbon they use is of much higher quality than what is used in windsurf equipment (at least so I am told).

My guess is the tooling of carbon booms is not a quick process. Hence the shortage, if there actually is any, is due to the time it takes to manufacture products. The simply can't make them quick enough.

P.C_simpson said...


Yer it's the planes, there all carbon now, but i was talking to a guy at the place i buy mine from, he said ........

strewth how many planes have you BOUGHT????? you have a regular guy you buy from ??? I use the same guy cos I've only bought two airliners in my whole LIFE

The main structure of the fuselage in modern airliners as well are mostly made of carbon composite.
They use very high grade carbon Fibre but the factories don't want to make the cheaper stuff anymore because they can sell the dear stuff the Boeing etc....
Supply will eventually catch up.... I hope.
Back in the early '80's we used to use carbon fibre cloth in the hulls of our whitewater slalom racing boats. It was horribly expensive and consequently used very carefully at over $80 a square meter. Imagine that in todays dollars. I recon it would be nearly double! Kevlar was 'cheap' at only $25 a meter so we were much more inclined to use that. Happily, Kevlar was better for kayaks anyhow because of it's extreme resistance to the hull tearing open on rocks. Carbon fiber made very stiff boats but had to be protected with a layer of Kevlar anyhow or mixed in the weave with kevlar for tear resistance. Carbon/Kevlar cloth in a clear laminate looks fantastic!
I think the equivalent Carbon Fiber cloth is now priced at more like $30/m and I am sure it will get cheaper when the production capacity catches up with the aerospace industry. Apparently, Kevlar got much cheaper in the '80s when the US Navy started putting 20cm+ thick layers of it between the steel plating in their warships which stimulated huge production capacity.

sailquik said...

... Apparently, Kevlar got much cheaper in the '80s when the US Navy started putting 20cm+ thick layers of it between the steel plating in their warships which stimulated huge production capacity.

Was this like a torpedo proof vest for the ships?

easty said...

sailquik said...

... Apparently, Kevlar got much cheaper in the '80s when the US Navy started putting 20cm+ thick layers of it between the steel plating in their warships which stimulated huge production capacity.

Was this like a torpedo proof vest for the ships?

Exactly!

stehsegler said...

I don't think the "carbon shortage" has anything to do with the A380. As far as I know only the wings of the A380 are made of carbon. The type of carbon they use is of much higher quality than what is used in windsurf equipment (at least so I am told).

My guess is the tooling of carbon booms is not a quick process. Hence the shortage, if there actually is any, is due to the time it takes to manufacture products. The simply can't make them quick enough.

I can't help but hoping that they make it out of better carbon than they use in 100% carbon formula masts

Otherwise, I think I would only catch an A380 at night time in case the wings snap off in mid-flight!

I was informed by both FGI and Kirkside (composite suppliers) that there were only 2 manufacturers of carbon in the world and the 2 airline makers bought up all of their carbon. Hence the shortage of carbon, before the shortage about 2 years ago carbon was $65/m now its $85/m The shortage only seems to be with the bi axial woven fabric, seems to be ample uni directional and stiched carbon roving available.

No in the end you can weave it anyway you like or lay it up anyway you like, but carbon is not good at continual flexing. It is brittle and 100% SDM's will always break earlier than recreational sailor's 50% - 75% masts

hope the wings dont fall off those new air buses...not the sort of thing you want to happen out the back of lano!!
seriously though i have read somewhere where the aero skeptics have got big concerns over the use of carbon especially in wings as it doesn't (supposedly) have the resilience or 'give that the traditional ali rivet construction gives.
then again the weight savings add up to more dollars in the airline pockets in terms of fuel savings i guess..