Morning all. I might as well start trying to use it. I’ve been having bad luck with pinholing in my prepreg part, and when I use my infamous PES first layer to give it a protective shine, ANY dust will leave dimples (since the plastic doesn’t flow, it forms a dome around the dust!!!) That and my corners are bridging like a crazy person.
What clear coat can I use at higher cure temps? I can do anywhere from 150-250f. Else I guess I can start to infuse…which I rather not.
I have thought about filling in the corners more with epoxy and sanding smooth, but I would never get the shine.
I’ve used Duratec vinyl ester clear coat as a gel and an uncolored vinyl ester get coat by Scott Bader and had pretty good luck with them. Oh yea, I usually shoot them pretty thin. I just realized you talked about prepreg. I have not tryed these processes with prepreg.
I was going to say the same ^^
pull up the tech specs for it and see if it fits your project.
ps. I like that 4x4 material. We are overlaying some kit car parts with 4x4 this week. I’ll post up pics once we are completed.
don’t feel bad about the pin holes… i just laid up a flat panel and had the same thing happen. Mine wasn’t prepreg though.
Use a gluefilm as the first layer. Or a coat of epoxy with roughly the same Tg as the prepreg, and a coat of clearcoat when finished. I wouldn’t use gelcoat on epoxy products without a skincoat.
For this purpose I’ve used prepreg with a 50gram/m2 glass layer on top of the carbon. The gluefilm does the same.
I was thinking about seeing if a film adhesive would work. Need to find an unreinforced one though.
I just don’t like clear coating, and sanding to a shine. Might as well get it done in one shot 