30 October 2009 - 11:00
Video: dream weaver
Prepare to have your mind lightly boggled. You're about to watch a video of Toyota's rotary weaver creating the A-pillar for the Lexus LFA.
If this sounds Incredibly Boring, it isn't.
While most CF components are created using pre-weaved sheets of carbon fibre, Toyota owns one of just two rotary weavers in existence, a device capable of literally knitting incredibly complex shapes out of the black stuff.
It goes some way - though probably not all the way - to explaining the LFA's £350,000 price tag.
Maybe it'll... ah, hell, just watch the video. It's amazing.
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woW! This is complicated mecanism...
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I have but one thing to say: "HAA HAAAA HAAAAA" to all the people who keep talking shit about this car. That machine is so awesome... and I suspect the car will be too! If that's the attention paid to the A pillar, that hand built engine must be incredible!
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Wow. Gorgeous in all its intricacy. I would like a custom-made carbon-fiber shirt please.
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Holly-S**T that looks like somthing out of a sci-fi movie
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carbon fibre sucks
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Dosn't fix the cars face though, it still looks like its had major facial reconstructive surgery.
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That's amazing. How does it work? @Mikeado - Carbon fibre is usually baked to make it solid. Resin is used on Fibreglass.
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When you said "Toyota's rotary weaver" I thought it'd be (yet another) viral video of someone with, say, a Supra fitted with a rotary engine, weaving through the traffic of Dubai.
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Quite mesmerizing really...
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@KMTV - CFRP also uses resins, as the carbon fibre is technically a reinforcement material for the resin (as with fibreglass). Also, high end CFRP isn't technically "baked", but rather placed in an autoclave to remove any impurities. In fact, most of the low end tat we see isn't even properly impregnated (removing the bubbles), making it no better than fibreglass. The difference between what they use in F1 and what goes on your shift knob is huge...
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Fresh out of some sci-fi manga comic.
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The car really grows on you, now i think it looks good and is more impressively technical than a nissan GTR. It also looks good, heck i'd buy one if i had enough money not to care about price.
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Nice. Very nice.
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who would like to go to dinner with someone who invented that? hahah
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I cant realize, how did i manage to live without seeing that, that just changed my world! Now im a buddha, living in a mountains growing... leafy thingies... and... thinking 'bout... stuff. Enough with sarcasm, its nice to see that kind of machine and how fiber just comes together, but 'onestly was this video necesary???
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Toyota started out making industrial weaving looms etc, before they started making cars. So it fits that they're weaving carbon fibre for their cars. Great machinery - James May would love it!!
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it may be well made but its still hideous. its like a facelifted toyota supra
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I would think that was a done up celica without a badge.
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I agree with lunchi why don't they make a custom-made carbon fibre shirt.
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That's funny CollegeKid, how you make it seem like someone who invented something great is inferior. Those guys who did all those renaissance paintings were probably boring at dinner parties, in rooms full of phonies too. Incredible how some people think... or don't, rather. I hope Lexus is selective about who they allow to buy this car, and not just give them to anyone who'll pay.
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It's like watching ballet. But more useful.
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Reading comments about the LFA being a done up Supra or Celica is hilarious. Especially considering the same people don't make comments about Ferraris being jumped up Fiats or Audis being jumped up Volkswagens. (By the way, the latter is true.) People who make such claims know as much about cars as an ant knows about a nuclear submarine.
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It looks like lots of little men whiring around on those seg-way thingys!!! Very japanese.
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They should have done that with the Matrix, but with some sort of "evil" music
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The vid's been removed? Shame, I was looking forward to it! WAs gonna tweet it and everything....
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Mikeado commented on this article
30 October 2009
Wow! So is it wound round a mould and then soaked in resin and stuff to make it solid and paintable?
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