EBM pretty much nails it, some ongoing USPS news, and in the "and the tubes they glow in the dark" department..
Back when I was building the mast for "So It Goes" I used quite a bit of carbon tow in the layup as it would stiffen the spar, was easy to use, and it was cheap. Fact of the matter is that carbon tow has a lot of uses as a way if adding selective reinforcement and rigidity to any number of boat oriented building project and as I've already said it's cheap.
So, this morning while perusing a boat designer and boatbuilder's website who also sells various boat building materials on their site I was surprised to see that they were selling 12K carbon tow for $0.29 a foot.
The price seemed a little high.
Worried that the price of carbon tow had went through the roof due to some sort of world shortage or suchlike I went over to my usual purveyor of carbon tow and other needful composite materials to find that carbon tow was still very affordable at between eight and thirty-five dollars a pound for 12K tow.
For those unacquainted with carbon tow a pound is a lot of tow as the tow I used for my mast was was 1734 feet to the pound and that works out to (rounded up) $0.0139 a foot or $24 a pound. As it happens this tow was actually the most expensive per foot from my supplier.
Now, at $0.29 a foot a pound of my tow would cost $502.86. or as best said in my favorite scene from "Used Cars".
Need I say more? Do your homework when dealing with marine suppliers.
Listening to a bunch of good songs
So it goes...
