I want to hire this “guy” he’s good:D ( refering to the robot arm )
RTM Lite is really cool. My old boss and I just finish our first closed mold part last week. A few minor hitches, but its going much better than I thought it would.
The video of the chopper gun and gelcoating is going to give me nightmares. Not sure which is more enjoyable, getting shot in the foot, or using a chopper gun.
Closed mold? In that type of RTM is there a male and female mold sandwhiching the laminate materials?
I was thinking of infusing with a female mold, make a male mold off that and then infuse the laminate. The laminate is sandwhiched between the two molds. I did one part this way already. I cast some plaster into a female mold - casting the plaster thick… all the way up even with the flange. I didn’t do it all in one shot. When demolding the plaster broke to pieces but the part came out good… not perfect but good enough that i could repair what was wrong.
Now if you could cast plaster or casting resin into a female mold then wrap the cast part of the mold in really thin plastic like saran wrap it would be reuseable at least a couple times if it was plaster… more so if it were casting resin. The trick is to vacuum off the part the normal way using resin, now sand the backside of that part smooth and paint it with polyester primer, buff it out and wax it accordingly.
Now place the laminated part back inside the female mold and then pour in your casting resin. Let it cure and now you have a two piece mold that leaves just the right amount of space for the new laminate materials.
I’d still like to see more RTM videos or in person use. It’s just the equipment is so darn expensive.
We used a male/female mold with locating pins. 6 vacuum outlets, one large resin inlet, a resin chanel around the entire part. Both molds were about a half inch thick. The part itself on averagle was a 1/4" thick, and about a 1/2" in its largest area. Infused in about 20 minutes. No flow medium, no peel ply, no nothing. It looks pretty good. Only problem is that the guy who made the mold didnt realize that the original part had lifted during the molding process. So basically our part came out about 1/4" to thick in some areas. A new male mold is being shot tomorrow.
Good links