CF demand outstripping supply

[joseff]

Carbon Fiber in short supply:

MotorAuthority

[Jersey Tom]

No kiddin. It was real bad in 04-05 and even into 06. Boeing sucked up so many damn materials it was insane. Beyond CF it got hard finding 7075 aluminum around here at times.

Its gotten a little better recently, isnt that bad getting just plain weave or uni. But prepreg.. either need a big aero contract or a D-pass rating to get it with any regularity, unless you just scavenge for stuff passed FAA cert.

[AeroGT3]

Prepreg and whatnot is only hard to get if you're one of the "little guys." Big companies have expired stuff laying around all over the place. We've had almost 100 yards of prepreg donated recently! It's only scarce if you're outside the aerospace industry.

[checkered]

Boeing sucked up so many damn materials it was insane.

Big companies have expired stuff laying around all over the place.

It's just one more strategy to make life hard for the (potential) competition - if there's a limited supply of anything, buy it all out if you can. This applies to many industries, electronics etc. But mostly it's about knowledge ... once people pull their heads out and realize there's an opening to make a profit, it's easy enough to work around such practices.

[flynfrog]

if you know who to talk to you can buy "scrap" Boeing 7075 for pennies a pound

also Boeing is more than willing to dump there expired Carbon on solar car and fsae teams

[Jersey Tom]

if you know who to talk to you can buy "scrap" Boeing 7075 for pennies a pound

Looks like I'm gonna have to find out who to talk to then! Pennies a pound, thats even better than FSAE cost report rates.

[tomislavp4]

First they were saying that the prices will drop if more manufacturers start using it, but now when they do, prices went in the sky

I know thet few companies are working on the process with goal to make bigger amounts of it cheap but we´ll see how it goes...
Your predictions? Would it get cheaper or the prices will continue to go sky-high

[mx_tifoso]

As more and more car manufacturers continue to increase the trend of CF use, the prices will most certainly drop in a few years time, providing their is more production of the material. CF production will have to increase as their is more demand, from aero, road car, and obviously motorsport. So the increase is probably just a normal phase, it happens in pretty much every product market worldwide.

A personal opinion about the rise in prices (pretty obvious at that): Demand for CF is definately increasing, and because it is an "exotic" material whose application usualy runs in high priced products, the manufacturers/suppliers are trying to increase their revenue by increasing the price of their much wanted product. Similar to stocks, and product/services with a lot of demand behind it.

But good luck to those who are trying to purchase it at lower than average prices.

I also have a question for those who might be able to anwer. Are the higher prices for CF effecting the Carbon Ceramic brake systems Which by the way are also becoming very popular among high performance auto manufacturers.

[fredfred]

CF is more scarce than it's been recently, but fortunately demand isn't outstripping supply-- all CF is still going to the highest value users.