Just wondering what other people use and prefer.
After a costly failed infusion of a large mold, we may need to try some other flow medias.
Currently using a green mesh, and it has worked ok. Feed line is spiral tubing, sitting on top of the flow media, and some strips on top of the spiral wrap to keep the bagging film from restricting out flow. Sometimes also use scored foam core, which helps infusion quite a bit.
I’d like to hear about other ways of distributing resin. Need to find something that flows fast and evenly over distances of 4 feet or more.
A very experienced laminator I know used to make very large mouldings, using a combination of vacuum and resin injection from a pressure pot. Another way that might work well is to have several vacuum ports, and open them as resin flows through the mould (yacht hulls are infused in this way).
Enkafusion is the fastest flowing stuff I’ve ever used. Much more efficient than the green or red nylon mesh stuff.
http://www.colbond-usa.com/getpage.html?pgid=105&pgtype=5
Call them up… They’ll give you a sample to test with.
Thanks for the inputs, keep them coming. For those people using the red mesh, have you tried the green also? What’s the difference?
I’ll give the Enkafusion a try. Are you using the blue nylon matting, or the resin feed sleeves?
I’ve used red and green. The green is a slight bit smaller in size (gauge??) and it doesn’t seem to work any better or worse than the red. One supplier told me the red is not being made anymore.
I haven’t used the sleeves, only the blue nylon stuff when I have a big part to make- I use the green mesh most of the time. The Enkafusion is awesome, but make sure you use some hefty bagging material. It has some sharp edges at some points and can pin hole the bag. I use 6 mil bags when I use it, just to make sure I don’t spring a leak. ;o)
My bud is infusing Jr Dragster bodies (aprox 10- 12 ft long) and he couldn’t get the red or green mesh to complete the infusion before the resin kicked- not even with multiple layers. He tried the Enkafusion stuff and with 1 layer, it flows the resin perfectly.
I’ll have to give the Enkafusion matting a try it seems!
After ruining a large 12 ply mold infusion, figured there must be better flow medias out there. :mad: First time I ever ended up with a smoking pot of resin.
Gonna try to save it by re-infusing. Some of the composites training courses are starting to develop this, so I’ll try my own method.
Im not producing anything that large but my complicated dash mold infused perfectly with the red mesh and a slowish epoxy mix. I just added extra resin lines just in case i need them. You can still rescue a part that hasnt infused fully by removing the old infusion materials and redoing the infusion, i have done this before and it works perfectly, ok it`s a pain but you can save the part.
Baz