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. [styrofoam]

   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. [jan_raas]

   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. [cha0tic]

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

4. [BastardNamban]

   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. [dculberson]

   I want a ring like this.

6. [Anonymous]

   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. [udfishbone]

   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.