Carbon Fiber - class action lawsuit (California)

[Neil Brooks]

Happened to catch a Public Notice in the paper yesterday. Apparently,
there's an ongoing class-action regarding alleged price fixing, by
carbon fiber suppliers, between 1993 and 1999.

Anybody heard about this? Were certain cyclists with CF
frames/components affected?

QUOTING:

Carbon Fiber
Lerach Coughlin attorneys serve as co-lead counsel in this action, in
which a class of purchasers allege that the major producers of carbon
fiber fixed the price of carbon fiber and allocated carbon fiber
markets from 1993 to 1999, causing the purchaser to pay more for
carbon fiber than they would have paid in the absence of the
conspiracy.
--
Live simply so that others may simply live

[Andy Gee]

Neil Brooks > wrote in
:

> Happened to catch a Public Notice in the paper yesterday. Apparently,
> there's an ongoing class-action regarding alleged price fixing, by
> carbon fiber suppliers, between 1993 and 1999.
>

And I was wondering why it cost $3,000 for frame that's made of,
essentially, doody. I guess that's my answer. My CF skateboard (the deck
weighs about a third what a CF frame does) costs $300 and has more
intricate curving than a bike frame, and that includes custom trucks,
wheels, and ABEC 7 bearings.

--ag

[Ryan Cousineau]

In article >,
Andy Gee > wrote:

> Neil Brooks > wrote in
> :
>
> > Happened to catch a Public Notice in the paper yesterday. Apparently,
> > there's an ongoing class-action regarding alleged price fixing, by
> > carbon fiber suppliers, between 1993 and 1999.
> >
>
> And I was wondering why it cost $3,000 for frame that's made of,
> essentially, doody. I guess that's my answer. My CF skateboard (the deck
> weighs about a third what a CF frame does) costs $300 and has more
> intricate curving than a bike frame, and that includes custom trucks,
> wheels, and ABEC 7 bearings.
>
> --ag

You're kidding, right? Materials are a part of the cost of CF (and resin
isn't cheap, and neither is a cloth woven of carbon...), but the real
difference between your CF skateboard and any CF frame is that a
skateboard deck can be trivially molded in a single mold, with no
assembly required.

Aside from the fact that a carbon fibre frame comes in 3-10+ sizes, I
don't know of any designs that don't consist of a whole bunch of
different moldings, all of them, despite what you might think, more
complicated moldings than a board deck. There may be CF bikes out there
using commodity pre-fabbed CF tubes, but I am doubtful.

--
Ryan Cousineau http://www.wiredcola.com/
"I don't want kids who are thinking about going into mathematics
to think that they have to take drugs to succeed." -Paul Erdos

[Andy Gee]

Ryan Cousineau > wrote in
:

> In article >,
> Andy Gee > wrote:
>
>> Neil Brooks > wrote in
>> :
>>
>> > Happened to catch a Public Notice in the paper yesterday.
>> > Apparently, there's an ongoing class-action regarding alleged price
>> > fixing, by carbon fiber suppliers, between 1993 and 1999.
>> >
>>
>> And I was wondering why it cost $3,000 for frame that's made of,
>> essentially, doody. I guess that's my answer. My CF skateboard (the
>> deck weighs about a third what a CF frame does) costs $300 and has
>> more intricate curving than a bike frame, and that includes custom
>> trucks, wheels, and ABEC 7 bearings.
>>
>> --ag
>
> You're kidding, right? Materials are a part of the cost of CF (and
> resin isn't cheap, and neither is a cloth woven of carbon...), but the
> real difference between your CF skateboard and any CF frame is that a
> skateboard deck can be trivially molded in a single mold, with no
> assembly required.
>
> Aside from the fact that a carbon fibre frame comes in 3-10+ sizes, I
> don't know of any designs that don't consist of a whole bunch of
> different moldings, all of them, despite what you might think, more
> complicated moldings than a board deck. There may be CF bikes out
> there using commodity pre-fabbed CF tubes, but I am doubtful.
>

I'll have to accept some elucidation here since i don't know how CF
frame tubes get joined together. My board is (or was) at
www.rollsrolls.com, and you can tell me if it's trivial or not. It is
_not_ a flat skateboard deck -- it's very 3-dimensional.

--ag

[Ryan Cousineau]

In article >,
Andy Gee > wrote:

> Ryan Cousineau > wrote in
> :
>
> > In article >,
> > Andy Gee > wrote:
> >
> >> Neil Brooks > wrote in
> >> :
> >>
> >> > Happened to catch a Public Notice in the paper yesterday.
> >> > Apparently, there's an ongoing class-action regarding alleged price
> >> > fixing, by carbon fiber suppliers, between 1993 and 1999.
> >> >
> >>
> >> And I was wondering why it cost $3,000 for frame that's made of,
> >> essentially, doody. I guess that's my answer. My CF skateboard (the
> >> deck weighs about a third what a CF frame does) costs $300 and has
> >> more intricate curving than a bike frame, and that includes custom
> >> trucks, wheels, and ABEC 7 bearings.

> > Aside from the fact that a carbon fibre frame comes in 3-10+ sizes, I
> > don't know of any designs that don't consist of a whole bunch of
> > different moldings, all of them, despite what you might think, more
> > complicated moldings than a board deck. There may be CF bikes out
> > there using commodity pre-fabbed CF tubes, but I am doubtful.
>
> I'll have to accept some elucidation here since i don't know how CF
> frame tubes get joined together. My board is (or was) at
> www.rollsrolls.com, and you can tell me if it's trivial or not. It is
> _not_ a flat skateboard deck -- it's very 3-dimensional.

I know a bit about the Trek process, though others use very different
systems. Basically, Trek uses formed carbon "tubing" (in quotes, because
it's really a molded part, not a drawn part) and "lugs" (CF, and again,
those are molded parts) bonded together, presumably using the same resin
that is used to assemble the CF bits themselves.

The tricky parts, aside from the assembly, are all those internal voids
on hollow parts. CF is compression-molded for strength, too, and there's
a couple of ways of handling that. Vacuum-bagging and external
pressure-molds would be two likely industrial processes.

For home-builders, Damon Rinard has done a couple of CF frames,
typically using an internal lost foam mold (in Damon's frames, he
generally left the foam in the frame, but more picky builders could use
acetone or another solvent to clean out the frame after). The external
compression was created using pin-pricked tape wrapped sticky side out
over the tubes. This method lets excess resin flow through the tape, and
prevents the tape from sticking to the frame.

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/rinard/howibuil.htm

Your Rolls Rolls deck has no internal spaces, and could be made using a
small-scale version of boat hull construction: lay up CF matting and
resin in a mold, and maybe use an internal mold or vacuum-bagging for
compression after. One-step process, I can almost guarantee it. Raw CF
frames are cheaper than you might suspect now, and probably do involve
several times as many construction steps as building your skate deck.

Full disclosure: I still ride Al, because it's cheap.

--
Ryan Cousineau http://www.wiredcola.com/
"I don't want kids who are thinking about going into mathematics
to think that they have to take drugs to succeed." -Paul Erdos