[fortythirtyfive]

Car was off the road for ages thanks to Bilstein.. so I began stripping the interior for upgrades seen as I had plenty of time

After a second set of control faces from eBay (mishap with the epoxy on the button inserts) I finally got them finished and re-installed. I laser etched the airbag logo so that I could retain the oem design.







Would I do it again? Nope. Trying to offset the buttons with resin whilst also keeping the resin out of the button inserts was such a PITA. It matches the rest of my interior and seat backs though so I'm happy.

Maybe the seat pulls/handles next?

[ThatOne340i]

i did my piece in carbon and left the button area in plastic

[eff32fl]

There's a German company that sells this piece in all carbon. They're not cheap though.

[fortythirtyfive]

Originally Posted by eff32fl

There's a German company that sells this piece in all carbon. They're not cheap though.

The outer bit? If so that's probably Benda. They're charge pretty big money for their work, but then there's not many others out there doing it.

Personally I couldn't justify dropping that kind of money on a small interior mod, but I totally understand why they charge those rates because its days of hard graft to produce carbon skinning like that. For example that small control panel cost me around £150 in material costs once I was done, that's without any labour costs either.

[Dang3r]

Im not sure about the appearance of the carbon, it looks way more different that the BMW stock used waves. I wouldn't say thats cheap but if you have OEM performance parts into your car, the difference is clearly visible.

[eff32fl]

Originally Posted by fortythirtyfive

The outer bit? If so that's probably Benda. They're charge pretty big money for their work, but then there's not many others out there doing it.

Personally I couldn't justify dropping that kind of money on a small interior mod, but I totally understand why they charge those rates because its days of hard graft to produce carbon skinning like that. For example that small control panel cost me around £150 in material costs once I was done, that's without any labour costs either.

Yeah Benda.

[eff32fl]

Originally Posted by Dang3r

Im not sure about the appearance of the carbon, it looks way more different that the BMW stock used waves. I wouldn't say thats cheap but if you have OEM performance parts into your car, the difference is clearly visible.

Gloss carbon looks way better than open pore carbon imo.

[Dang3r]

Originally Posted by eff32fl

Gloss carbon looks way better than open pore carbon imo.

Thats right, but glossy carbon wasn't installed into F3x series but F8x series.
E.g., when you are gonna buy the performance shift case F3x series OEM, this is open pore carbon. For the F8x this is glossy finish and you have the opportunity to buy them additionally for the trim.
What he has installed looks neither to classify.

[fortythirtyfive]

Originally Posted by Dang3r

Thats right, but glossy carbon wasn't installed into F3x series but F8x series.
E.g., when you are gonna buy the performance shift case F3x series OEM, this is open pore carbon. For the F8x this is glossy finish and you have the opportunity to buy them additionally for the trim.
What he has installed looks neither to classify.

The carbon fabric I used is plain weave 1x1. What you're referring to is 2x2 twill weave which is more commonly know for it's cosmetic purposes as it's not as strong.

I do like 2x2 twill weave however once I saw plain weave in person my preference totally changed. I'm not sure if it's because the weave looks sharper or if its just because you see so much fake 2x2 twill weave in a lot of cars these days, plain weave totally hits different for me though.

Next time you see a Ferrari or Porsche check out their carbon fiber interior and exterior (providing its not aftermarket) - plain weave was actually some of the first weaves used in F1 because of its stiffer rigidity making it a stronger composite than what you see on a lot of cars these days.



The open pore fabric you mention really doesn't do much for me, it's not actually traditional twill weave either, what BMW uses for their M Performance range is a 5HS weave fabric, it has similar properties to the twill weave but lays better with less epoxy.

All my carbon interior trims have been skinned in gloss plain weave to match, including the dash accent line. We're all different though.. some people like honey comb pattern carbon but I draw the line there haha.

[eff32fl]

I imagine open pore carbon is harder to keep clean as well. Dirt and grime has to get into the weave since there's no clear coat.

Agreed, not a fan of the honeycomb carbon either lol.

I've seen some blue carbon that looks pretty dang spiffy, I've thought about using that in my interior instead of standard black carbon but I have a blue car and don't want too much blue (after adding other blue accents in the interior).

[Dang3r]

Yeah, I had also developed a taste for blue colored carbon parts but actually Im done into my interior.

[fortythirtyfive]

I spent 2-3 years trying to master carbon kevlar fabric in red. The issue when adding a colour is it naturally shows every slip in the fabric, this is a great example:



This actually happens in traditional carbon fiber however due to there darkness of the composites you don't really see the weave slipping.

I truly believe the only way to master colour decorative fabrics is to either use prepreg (you cannot skin with prepreg though only mould) or add a colour pigment into your epoxy top coat, however you would end up with just one colour rather than dark grey and colour.