Types Of Carbon Fiber Used In Carbon Fiber Wedding Bands
Not all carbon fiber rings are created equal. There's a large disparity in quality of carbon fiber used in wedding bands. We use only the top of the top and we'll explain why.
Top Cut Carbon Fiber
Top cut carbon fiber rings are made from a thick sheet of carbon fiber. Usually between 6-12mm in thickness which is about 1/4" and 1/2" thick. Top cut carbon fiber is made by layering many layers of carbon fiber on top of each other and curing it with resin. Sometimes it's made from pre-impregnated carbon fiber, sometimes infused (our preference) and sometimes compression molded. We prefer infused. The quality is better, it is nearly always void free this way.
Premium Top Cut Carbon Fiber Ring
Premium top cut carbon fiber is similar to top cut carbon fiber except it is made with a thicker weave of carbon fiber. Carbon fiber fabric is measured in tow width and weight. The carbon fiber we use in this design is a 12k tow and very heavy, which seems counter intuitive for carbon fiber to be heavy, but it's just thicker which means less layers so it works out.
Blackwood Carbon Fiber
Blackwood carbon fiber is also called side cut carbon fiber. Side cut carbon fiber is cut from the side of a thick sheet of carbon fiber. We're not talking about just thick carbon fiber, but thiccc with 3 c's. It's 1.25"s thick minimum. Most of the time even thicker than that. There's bad blackwood carbon made from pre-preg laminated together and there's good stuff infused like our top cut carbon.
Marble Carbon Fiber
Marble carbon or forged carbon is basically someone casting resin and carbon fiber. It is widely used by Lamborghini and other car manufacturers where they need to make a weird part lightweight, they make a mold and cram carbon and epoxy in there. It looks really nice but is usually full of voids and other issues that threaten strength and appearance. The appearance portion is important in jewelry.
Unidirectional Carbon Fiber
This is my personal least favorite carbon fiber. It's similar to a weave pattern except, lazy. It's just all the strands of carbon fiber going in one direction. It does look kind of cool in its own way.
Tube Carbon Fiber
Tube carbon is either awesome or terrible. Most tube carbon fiber has a fiberglass composite interior with only one or two thin carbon fiber fabrics over the top. That's the lowest grade and it's terrible. There is some tube carbon that we've used that is American made and is carbon fiber all the way through. It's the only time we work with tube carbon fiber.