Can anyone give me some insight into how “pahanes” gets such great results with his parts? I tried contacting him, but haven’t heard back. What type of molds do you think he’s using? CF/Epoxy, Fiberglass/VE, Fiberglass/PE? Other? How would you do it?
Experience.
Haha. In all honesty, there’s no great secret to what he is doing - he just gets consistently good results because he obviously knows his techniques very well. I have seen photos of his moulds before, and I’m sure he uses Unimould as well as the epoxy tooling system from Easy Composites. I’m no sure if he has moved into pre-preg at all, but I’m fairly certain that his parts are all infused.
The key is in having a good tool (which means having a good pattern to begin with). A good mould will make your life a lot easier, don’t try to save costs on making your moulds. And other than that, it’s just about getting the process right. If that’s infusion then it means a good quality infusion resin and an absolutely leak free bag. If it’s pre-preg then it means good technique in your layup and a well sorted cure schedule.
Whatever method you are using, you have to get the basics right. If you have a good tool, a good understanding of the infusion process, and you make sure you don’t ignore the basics of the process (ie. leak free bag, no bridging, low viscosity resin, etc.), then you will bang out good parts too.
Pahanes also post-finishes his parts, and he seems to have access to a spray booth - something that definitely helps a lot. Learn to spray paint and learn to do it well, and everything is much much simpler.
I’ve been using spray adhesive to hold the fabric in the mold and I think that may be the reason the part’s surface is so dry I can see and feel the weave. I guess I need to try some different techniques, maybe IMC. If I’m using the infusion process to produce the part, is there any advantage to using something other than PE/fiberglass for the mold?