Filling Joints

The current step of the carbon bike build is probably the ugliest.  It involves glopping a special epoxy mixture onto the joints, trying to form it to a shape, waiting for it to harden, then filing and sanding it smooth.  It doesn't usually go down in one fell swoop, and involves lots of clean up between efforts.

There aren't pictures for each step in the process, but here are some mid-stream:

The joint above has been filled, filed, and sanded.  Now a lighter layer of filler is applied.  When dry, it will be sanded down to a smooth transition between the tubes.

Here's the lower head-joint at about the same point.  As the epoxy tacks up, a rag with acetone is used to clean the excess from the tubes away from the joint itself - which saves on sanding later.

The bottom of the BB is done, and a woven reinforcement has been applied.  The upper between the tubes is almost finished, and filler still needs to be built up between the seat-tube and chain-stay.

More soon....