I wonder if this has any implications for the price of bike frames?

http://yahoo.carsales.com.au/news/2012/ ... rket-32913

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Hard to tell, but the industry will then look for something else to aim for the high end market. Remember when alu frames used to be $3K?

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humm, interesting.

Article does say process is for "unstressed" components so not sure it could be made to work for frame tubes that are all stressed.

I like the idea of easily recycling an old frame tho!

Yeah, not really relevant for bicycle frame production...

not sure that article used terminology correctly (at least as I understand it). Roof panels are most certainly stressed panels, but they are not highly stressed, and they don't have point loadings on them. I suspect this fabrication process will evolve to incorporate higher strength resins, leading to greater flexibility in applications (as happens with all composites)

I don't think it's a particularly new concept,essentially it just sounds like pre-preg carbon. The difference is instead of using an epoxy resin they're using a chemically altered plastic. The price of raw material carbon fibre won't be dropping, so the only factor would be the cost of production and as they say it's for unstressed panels I'm guessing that it will be entirely cosmetic and not structural in any way. I won't be holding my breath while it comes to the 'mass market'

But will it be lighter?
That's what matters here.

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Exp001

Maybe if it were molded into tubes which by design are stronger with internal ribs for added strength it might work.

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I would very much doubt if it will be lighter. The carbon fibres will be the same weight so the only discerning factor is the resin and in prepreg there's already the absolute minimum so it then comes down to density of the resin. Even if it did filter to bikes I doubt you would be able to tell.