Anyone ever made a vaccum press for infusing flat sheets

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#1

I was looking into making a heated fully sealed vacuum press which would incorporate a silicone breather track into a top frame to do away with flow media when infusing. It would look much like the ones on the torrtech website with frame and wheels however am in the UK and no one seems to do them here (also the expense of torrtech is not an option)

The layup time on big sheets is a real pita and also getting a seal can be a real problem sometimes, I can waste hours! so I want something which I can layup without the flow media just carbon and peel ply then close the lid with silicone breather in and infuse. Easy as that, erm I think!!

Has anyone done anything similar to this or can shed any light on how to go about it??? :slight_smile:

#2

Can’t say I would know how about doing it, but the standard RTM, CIRTM, processes are like that. 2 mold halves close, and they inject resin.
Obviously, vacuum assisted processes are the same, but well…the resin gets sucked through.

I would think for flat panels would be easy. Maybe just a matched boxframe with silicone gasket around the edge, and clamp it down. Pull vacuum somewhere, and inject elsewhere. Seems like a good idea.

#3

There is a UK company in either Devon or Cornwall who make flat sheets. If you phone CFS they may be able to help with contact details.

#4

That sounds like it would work well. From a cost stand point it makes sense.

Why not eliminate the silicone flow medium and have a flow medium pattern etched into the upper half of the mould?

Ever think about making a silicone bag? Can you elaborate on why laying up a large flat sheet is time consuming? Or did you mean the post layup is time consuming? Like the bag sealing, flow medium, peel ply placement.

Atleast your saving money on spray glue!

#5

Like this from Bondline (which will sell you the parts if needed):

#6

yeah something like that werksberg but a fair bit bigger, maybe 2 metre x 1 metre. Does it use a flexible membrane on top? I will contact them for some details thankyou.

JRL I like the idea if incorporating the flow track into the top half of the mould, imagine this would be fairly costly to do in aluminium perhaps. It is time consuming laying the bag up and getting a perfect seal and then you have to get it ready for re-use. I would rather automate the process a little and get consistent results with less time in, makes sense if I am doing a lot.

Ideally I would want to use interlaminar flow media so I can infuse a double sided glossy sheet in one hit.

Not really sure how the resin and vacuum lines would work with a setup like this though, :slight_smile:

#7

Thats full blown RTM, or RTM lite.