Originally Posted by
carleton
But that's exactly what Felt did with the TK1 Endurance and TK1 Sprint (or whatever they were called a few years ago. The Sprint model used a heavier layup.
So, maybe they are saving money by not creating separate Endurance and Spring molds for each given size. Maybe they are using the same molds and adding more carbon when the sprint frames are being produced. (I don't know if that's how it would go down. Not familiar with carbon fiber manufacturing.).
That's exactly how you would stiffen a frame using the same mold. The internal bladders just compress the the carbon lay up against the inside of a rigid mold. How you alter the lay up itself would make no difference in the methodology of how the frame is produced. Once you have your shape/mold, and general lay up figured out, you could then customize the level of compliance and stiffness just by playing around with different lay up schedules.