[kyrra]

The allure of carbon fiber in industry has to do with the properties of the material that can be produced. Home made carbon fiber won't be all that great of a material compared to what people see out in the world (on race cars, planes, etc...). Production lines for producing commercial carbon fiber is super expensive ($100 million+). Zoltek has a basic rundown of the process [0].

[0] http://www.zoltek.com/carbonfiber/how-is-it-made/

[Gravityloss]

For the really good stuff, you'd need pultruded carbon fiber where the glue sets with the fibers tensioned straight to really get good strength effects.

A lot of composite work is low volume production with excessive manual work at not very good quality.

Ultrahigh Molecular Weight Polyethylene (UHMWPE) might be a much more interesting material as it has a higher strength to weight ratio and as it melts at a lower temperature, 135 C. It is nontoxic too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-molecular-weight_pol...

[scottdw2]

That's the whole point.

It's disruptive technology: not as good, way more accessible.

[fudged71]

Yes exactly http://www.bhorowitz.com/can_do_vs_cant_do_cultures