Milk the Rich: Purisme carbon fiber bangle

Purisme sells this lovely carbon fiber bracelet for a maddening €590.

Carbon Mods UK will sell you a single A5-sized sheet of carbon fiber for $14.30.

[#1 posted by styrofoam , March 27, 2009 2:43 PM]

After conversion rate I couldn't find anything on that CarbonMods site for $14.30- but Aerostich sells an ~a7 sized sheet for about $16.

http://www.aerostich.com/catalog/US/Aerostich-CFSP-Carbon-Fiber-Sidestand-Plate-p-16813.html

There's also a deluxe version that includes a cord and a "remove before flight" tag that you're supposed to wrap around your brake lever- so you don't ride away and forget your $20 replacement for a scavenged beer can...

[#2 posted by jan_raas , March 27, 2009 7:46 PM]

Or you could buy this for a mere $0.99 (that's 99 cents, Mr. Verizon) and spend the other, what, $783 on your mortgage or car payment or some such.

[#3 posted by cha0tic , March 27, 2009 10:51 PM]

Jan Raas. What diameter is your wrist & what diameter is a headset spacer?

[#4 posted by BastardNamban , March 28, 2009 2:54 AM]

It's not that carbon fiber is prohibitively expensive anymore, just that certain types are.
Cosmetic, simple looking weaves are cheap- high & tighter weave counts (for actual structural integrity uses) get more expensive, but only about 2-3x as much.

The reason we always see anything with carbon fiber as $$$ is mainly because it's a BITCH to work with. You have to use resins of course, very messy, and getting anything with nice curves like this is not a beginner's task. It's quite hard to contour well- that's why anything made from it like this is expensive.

So I reason the price is mostly labor cost, not material cost. keeping in mind carbon fiber sheet is very thin, something this thick took a LOT of laminating and subsequent sanding in between to keep this smooth. That's the number 1 part of the labor costs- sanding carbon fiber between each sheet application perfectly, or the next layer goes to shit.

This is why anything remotely non-flat is very expensive. If you're determined, you can do it yourself- it doesn't take a supreme amount of skill, just a lot of patience and meticulous sanding.

[#5 posted by dculberson , March 28, 2009 8:20 AM]

I want a ring like this.

[#6 posted by Anonymous , March 28, 2009 8:46 PM]

This company that I found has a carbon fiber bracelet for 85.00 US

http://www.titanium-buzz.com/cafije.html

The post got me searching for a carbon fiber wedding band and I found this site.

[#7 posted by udfishbone , March 30, 2009 6:59 AM]

All you would need would be a $5000 mold and some foam core, and you could make a hundred of these each week. No sanding or significant lay-up time necessary.