Custom DIY Carbon Fiber Center Console For FrankenBenz

This was the original state of my 'FrankenBenz' center console... The wood was in a very poor condition when I first took over the car... Most of the wood were either chipped or cracked... It looked really ugly and I really can't accept it...

Hair line cracked was all over the place... I needed to do something to it and the easiest way out was to stick carbon fiber looking sticker over it... 

Sticking the carbon fiber sticker over it was really easy... It transformed the center console totally!!! Now it looked so much nicer and not forgetting sportier... But unfortunately, after a few months of application, the carbon fiber sticker started to peel off and making it unsightly!!! 

In my previous blog post, I posted something on a 'DIY' carbon fiber kit... I'm going to use the kit and skinned it on the center console... First thing that I needed to do was to prepare the center console... Last time I was lazy and did not do a proper job of sanding the wood thus hair line cracked can be seen even after applying the carbon fiber sticker!!! This time round, I'm taking extra effort on the sanding part...

 I've even bought a wood filler to fill up most of the chipped area and making it smooth!!!

 After applying the wood filler, let it dry and sand it smooth... 

Time to prepare the carbon fiber cloth... Make sure that the cloth was sufficient before cutting it and remember to align the pattern accordingly... 

Before cutting, stick a masking tape on the area that you wanted to cut... The reason for doing this was to prevent the cloth from disintegration and also make it easier to cut!!!

 Put on the supplied rubber gloves and I'm ready to roll!!!

Mixed the supplied epoxy and hardener with the ratio of 2:1... Two parts epoxy and one part hardener... Mixed it thoroughly and used the brush and lightly coat the parts...

Placed the carbon fiber cloth on top of it... Remember to place it properly as you can't lift it once you place it down as it will spoilt the carbon fiber cloth!!! After that, used the brush and apply a thin layer on top of the carbon fiber cloth... Left it overnight for it to dry up... You don't have to cut out those area yet... Let it dry and it will be super easy to cut later on... This was the part that I got it wrong... I cut out those area before the epoxy and hardener mixture turned hard and disrupted the carbon fiber cloth!!!

After leaving it overnight, cut off those excessive part and sand the parts with sand paper... The reason for sanding the parts was to ensure that the area was totally flat but don't over do it as you might sand off the carbon fiber cloth pattern...  

After making sure that the parts was flat, mix the epoxy and hardener with the same ratio and apply another layer... Let it rest for a few hours and apply another layer...

 Let it dry overnight...

As you can see from this pic, I disrupted the carbon fiber cloth but thankfully, I have left over and I redo this part all over again!!!

Again mix up the mixture and reapply on the parts and let it dry overnight... Used a very fine sand paper and sand it... Cleaned up the parts and apply polisher on it and buff it up so that it looked shiny...

Ta-dah!!! This was the outcome!!! I don't have enough epoxy and hardener so that some of the parts were not covered properly... But still much better compared to carbon fiber sticker!!! Now 'FrankenBenz' looked so much sportier and I'm loving it!!!


To be continue...