Carbon fibre Shortage!

[Madmat]

Not sure if anyone knew this but there is a worldwide shortage of Carbon Fibre at the moment! It is apparently all being used up by the aeronautical industry to make planes like the F-22 Raptor, Hurricane and the companies Airbus and Boeing. Found this out yesterday when i went looking for some! Most places are out of stock or limiting the amount you can purchase! 

[Gruntfuggly]

Surely that's not true? You don't build jet fighters with off the shelf peices of carbon fibre. Were you told that by several people, or was it just one person trying to fob you off? I'm not calling you a liar or anything - just seems a bit mad to me!

[Madmat]

No its actually true!  Try this link.....It was my main source for the reasons as to the shortage.

http://www.tapplastics.com/info/carbonnews.php

If you want more proof

http://www.fibreglast.com/carbonfibershortage

http://www.shopmaninc.com/carbonpage.html

http://ceriousperformance.com/ ( scroll down on this link)

http://carb.com/

Hope this helps

Saying this though not every were appears to be suffering !

Dont want to sound condescending in any way, But you do know that you can mold carbon fibre! using wet-lay techniques among others

[Shodog]

Surely that's not true? You don't build jet fighters with off the shelf peices of carbon fibre. Were you told that by several people, or was it just one person trying to fob you off? I'm not calling you a liar or anything - just seems a bit mad to me!

Your right it's not off the shelf stuff.  The raw carbon fiber is made to certain specifications where then it is formed into what is needed for the new airplanes.  this shortage is actually good as producers of carbon fiber will learn how to streamline their processes to increase production.  once the shortage is over there will be a high amount of manufacturing capability ans maybe prices will go down.

 

[Rabiedmushroom]

I've also heard about this, ealier in the year.

My work-colleague's partner makes small carbon fibre parts for classic & performance cars, and was saying that the shortage has hiked the cost of componant material. So for example he'd be attending classic Mini shows this summer to sell c-f bonnets, air scoops, dashboards & rear parcel shelves, but firstly is having problems sourcing the material, and secondly its really expensive and the consumer isn't prepared to pay silly money.

[theshopkeeper]

It's not the only thing that's short.  Zinc demand is currently outstripping supply in the far east and as a result the price has skyrocketed since the start of the year - this doesn't affect RC that much, but anything that's made of die-cast metal uses zinc as a release agent so the cost to make model cars and cast components is rising rapidly at present.  The model makers are talking about large price rises next year - some have already jumped their prices up mid-year to cover it.

I expect 10 years from now cars will start to rust again since a major use for Zinc is galvanising, and car makers will quietly stop mentioning it, no one will notice and it'll return...

Eventually, one day, oil will run low.  Then we're all done for...  plastics anyone?  Tamiya could whittle a TT02 out of pine but I'm not sure what the performance would be like!