Here is a little sample selction of my work… Not quite ready to do this for a living yet… haha… Give me a year or three and I may be ready…
Nice work Richard.
Cheers Chris… Not happy with or comfortable with it all yet… Still feels like I am in deep deep water and got a long way to go… But it will get there…
Todays efforts… Laid up both halves with surface material. Each half is a single piece laid in one large section… I dont rush so it took over 2 hours per side… Good job I work for myself…
nice work !
A little update… The painter has lacqured the belly pan now… He has sent some photos to update me… This is straight out of the gun and still has to be flattened off and polished… So ignore the orange peel look… That will not be there when it is finished…
Although I do prefer the dull satin look over glossy… But this is a customers request so I have to do what they want…
You really are doing a great job. Give your self more credit for your efforts. There are SEVERAL people in the US who consider themselves to be experts at this stuff, and they dont have even a fraction of your skill. If you can produce these kinds of results as a beginner, I cant wait to see what you put out when you consider yourself a pro.
I feel like I will always be a beginner and learning how to make things a little better… This is the first belly pan I had made being Lacquered up. I have made a few more since but those have not been lacquered up yet. I still have a good way to go before I am happy with my work… But then if we just sit back and are happy with what we do today tomorrow we may be left behind…lol
Well done!
You and I have an incredibly similar outlook toward things sir. I also believe in constant self improvement. I always say, “You either continue to improve upon yourself, or you rust away into worthlessness. In an ever changing world there is no middle ground, no maintaining mediocrity.” As far as I’m concerned, when you start doing just enough to get by, that’s when you get left behind.
morepower
Your parts look great!
Could you tell us how you make them? Are you using poly or epoxy? Infusion or some other method?
Keep up the good work. I have been learning this for about 6 months and each layup is like a new day.
I mostly do wet lay polyester… I only use epoxy wet lay for my fuel tank bases and use a special resin that is resistant to ethanol. (for obvious reasons being up to 10% ethanol in our fuels now). I dont do infusion, not for any other reason than i dont need to… I am happy with my results just using a vacuum bag and wet lay.
My body kits are pre-preg due to the seat and tank unit being both structural and to save weight. I dont have an autoclave but I do have easy acess to an oven to cook them. So I use ACG’s VTF pre-preg as it is the only one I have tried that gives a pinhole free perfect finish. Other all have problems with pinholes of varying sizes. So I only use VTF for my pre-preg parts.
Thank you for your compliments guys… It means a lot… I have only been making pre-preg parts for a very short time and only made 3 seat/tank units and 4 fairings… So a total of about 12 or 13 parts… So I am still very very new at this… I have been doing wet lay for about 18 months off and on…
Sorry… Not great photos… Reflections seem to be a problem… I will get somemore tomorrow. But here are a couple of photos after some clearcoat…
I’m curious about your finish on the B side of the part with VTF. Is it smooth as glass too? They all look great by the way!!
-Tom
Thank you…
No it is an open faced mould with no male form to press it into the female part, so it has a release film on the back face. That leaves the texture of the film… The film is not put on smoothly as I don’t use a perforated release I use a solid release film so it has been crumpled up in my hand to give wrinkles to allow some air to pass along the lines but not allow exess resin out of any perforations like you get with a perforated release… I was told to do that by the guy who has been helping me and it works and the vacuum bag doesnt seem to stop the air being allowed to move…
…
Here is my next new part for my own project… This is going to be my plug for the new mould… It too will be an open faced mould and it will be pre-preg done the same way in the vacuum bag.
Hmm, im using a 2x2 twill prepreg on a open face mold and get a raised finish. It seems like the vacuum bag/breather and non perf are being sucked between the lines.
like this photo.
Do you happen to have a photo of the release film finish for comparison?
thanks,
ps-sorry to hijack the thread a little. You do excellent work!
I can get a photo for you… I have quite a few pieces here. But yes it looks the same. I dont need a cosmetic finish on both sides I just need strength for the monocoque seat and fuel tank and light weight with just enough stiffness to stop it from flexing too much at high speed.
No problem… I dont mind answering your question… haha… Thank you for liking my work…
Thanks, I’m curious to see how it compares.
No problem… I have 3 photos the first is just using non perforated release film and breather over the back. The “fault” you see on there is just where the release had doubled over and left the crease. I dont put it down smoothly as I want some exess film to be pulled down and not cause bridging or break and allow resin onto the breather…
The second photo is where I have run peel ply round the outer edge to allow some air to flow off the part and give me a bonding surface, I fold some over under the material on the flange again to help get air off the surface.
Third and final photo is the outside visible surface…
sorry for the poor quality of the photos I had to use my phones camera… I almost forgot to get the photos…
Okay, that clears things up a bit. You can feel the weave a little right? Are you using any particular kind of breather for prepreg?
I want to try the Teflon coated peel ply from aircraft spruce and see if that will help with compaction. It’s thicker than the Dacron stuff.