I’m planning to infuse the inside of the hull of my boat project. I’ve done a fw small scale infusions before but tackling something as large as a 31 1/2’ x 10’ boat is a whole new ball of wax for me. I’m trying to calculate the resin requirement for the pull based on these numbers (rounded up).
The resin content of the fibreglass materials should be a known %, usually about 35%.
Assuming you have a core material? the resin uptake of this will vary between different brands and types of core.
I would make a sample sandwich panel and also a sample of just straight glass in the same shoot and then cut, measure, weigh and calculate the differences and how much resin your core material alone uses.
Also cut and weigh any other infusion medium if you are using one. Then add estimated extra for the medium, plumbing n pipe resin etc.
The last largish infusion (35kg resin) I did we had all the premeasured 6kg buckets of vinyl ester resin ready to go and just kept catalysing each and adding them into the main resin pot. 6kg went fast too so sometimes we had to clamp the inlet to prevent the pot getting too low and lines drawing air.
Thanks for looking in Fasta. You Aussies are on the ball with this stuff. I spent the better portion of this evening with one of your countrymen exchanging forum posts & emails about this. He’s an accomplished composites guy building himself a 10M power cat.
I’ve been told that’ll vary somewhat with the vacuum you can pull. His results with similar materials is 32% at 98% vacuum. That’s very similar to what I can achieve with my equipment.
No core, the hull is already laminated on the outside, faired and primed. This infusion will be reinforcements only.
I plan to do exactly that this winter. The fella I mentioned earlier has offered some alternatives to flow media that I want to try out. Apparently 30% shade cloth works as well as the airtech stuff and is less than half the price and retains less than half the resin.
Got that covered too. Will work up a new spreadsheet when I get the chance.
I’ll be using an epoxy. Resin Research 2070 or similar. I’m hoping to get away with as little waste as possible. I had an idea to do a serial infusion, another thread, but have to rethink that plan. I do like the process though, simpler to set up, smaller batches to mix, less waste etc.
I learned a lot tonight. Just gotta get it all straight in my head now!
