The all composite aircraft and other transportation vehicles are not yet in full production. The composite mods to reduce weight in existing models are underway and accelerating.

From what I can gather the carbon fiber plants that are under construction or just finished will almost meet the increased demand for the next 2-3 years. Many of those plants were built to supply already signed contracts.

There will be some surplus in a year or so when companies start dumping cloth (weights, weaves, blends, etc) that didn't work in preproduction.

If you want to help the small builders, don't buy any carbon junk (cell phone covers, etc). I heard a story from facilities guy a couple of months ago, "5 years ago we almost had to give surplus carbon and kevlar away and pay extra to have cutting scraps hauled away. Now people are making offers on our entire surplus and the recycle company is paying us by the pound for scraps" Consumer junk is eating what the experimenters used to use. On ebay you competing with idiots who plan to glue the carbon to the hood of their civic for a carbon fiber look.

The old carbon-carbon process (burning rayon in a vacuum) is beginning to look attractive. If I just had a big vacuum oven I could build an AClass from surplus dress fabric and the boat would have a flower patten etched into the hull.

Todays bargins are exotic aluminums, titantium, specta fabrics, mono-crystal fabrics and fibers, and clear red western ceder. Except for the ceder these thing are hard to find because they are in the hands of surplus dealers that don't know what they have and can't even spell their real names. These things are not in populer literature and you are going to have to work hard to figure out how to use it but an monocystaline iron mast for your 5.2 would be a marvel.


Finally to be serous, now is the time to play with epoxy wood.