Case Study: CFT Work with the Rigging Projects

With over 40 years combined expertise in the marine sector, Carbon Fibre Tubes (CFT) have long been manufacturing carbon fibre parts for customers and supporting them in the development of innovative products for the marine industry. It was this wealth of industry experience combined with their composite manufacturing capabilities that led Rigging Projects to engaging CFT on a recent project.

What are Rigging Projects?

Rigging Projects are marine hardware and sailing systems specialists. Combining their in-depth knowledge of sailing systems with their experience in technical sales of the composite rigging sector, they have created the RP range of deck and mast hardware. And it’s here where the team at CFT come in…

Carbon Fibre Tubes were engaged by the Rigging Projects team to manufacture a series of very complex carbon fibre sheet components machined to specific requirements. These specialist parts needed to be machined from high quality pre-preg quasi-isotropic sheets to achieve the performance criteria of the end-product. CFT custom pressed the sheet using the in-house heated platen press. Once complete, the project moved through to the machining team for profiling using the CNC vertical machining centres. Rigging Projects are known for the high standard of products which are resilient under real-world sailing conditions, and therefore quality was paramount throughout this project. The most challenging aspect was achieving the extremely tight tolerances required. The CFT engineers had to ensure exceptional workmanship, high levels of precision and used specialist high-tech inspection equipment to assure their work. In this case the sheet had to be profiled using precision boring heads to guarantee the product met the exacting specification.

Where we came in:

A strength of CFT’s team is the engineering review at the planning stage of a project; in this case, to achieve the requirement, the team needed to make custom fixture plates for the parts that could then be used for multiple operations, ensuring consistency and quality throughout. The standard of the finishing of this part was also crucial to the customer. The Rigging Projects team required a satin sheet clear coat to be applied to the finished parts. Having an in-house fully extracted paint booth in which to complete this meant there was no delay in finishing these parts.

Alex Fullick, Production Manager, had this to say:

“This was a great project to be involved in, not only because we could leverage our marine sector expertise, but also that it showcased the agility of Carbon Fibre Tube’s full manufacturing capabilities.”

And as for the end product, well they speak for themselves….