Originally Posted by
MingusDew
Also, if you don't have any experience with CAD/CAE, and designing a load bearing structural component then you probably should not even be attempting a project like this. Properly designing any structural piece (e.g. front fork) requires material knowledge, structural design to account for both loadings and fatigue limits, and the experience with CAD/CAE software.
It's not just as simple as drawing a fork in a computer program and printing it out.
This is the most important part. It's all very well saying this material is stronger/lighter than CF, but you and your friend don't know how it behaves in the unique stress/strain patterns of a bicycle fork. The carbon forks that are on the market now have been honed through 30 years of experimentation to eliminate excess material in places where it isn't needed, thus bringing the weight down. You don't know where these places are in your new material. So to accommodate that, you'll probably have to overdesign your fork by a significant amount. Meaning you'll end up with a much heavier fork, when you could've got a lighter chrome fork for $100 on eBay.
On the other hand, it might be a fun project to work on with him, if you can afford the "printer ink" to do a few dozen different designs before coming up with one that works. DON'T treat this as a way to get a lighter-than-carbon fork on the cheap. Because it isn't.