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Old 01-04-17 | 09:16 PM
  #86  
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Maelochs
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Bikes: 2015 Workswell 066, 2017 Workswell 093, 2014 Dawes Sheila, 1983 Cannondale 500, 1984 Raleigh Olympian, 2007 Cannondale Rize 4, 2017 Fuji Sportif 1 LE

Ummm ... as far as I know, ALL CF is built in molds ... usually vacuumed to suck the epoxy thoroughly through the weave, and then baked.

Really high-end bikes have better pre-production engineering---more care goes into exactly how many layers of what weave in what orientation will give the widely varied frame characteristics each separate section can potentially offer---and the initial design is more complicated---or at least more heavily researched and engineered.

The open-mold frames are basically reverse-engineered copies, and not necessarily laid up with the same precision or the same weaves in the same directions, because the reverse-engineer wouldn't necessarily know what the original engineer intended.
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