Hi guys,
I have a mold of a trunk lid and the mold is an L-shape or has a 90 degree angle. I’m about to try making the first carbon fiber part on this mold but my concern is that the resin will run down from one side when I’m working on the other. Any tips or techniques anyone can share? Thanks
Are you going to vacuum bag the part?
Tilt it from a L to a V…? 
Any pictures would help…
What Composites experience level are you at? If first time, practice with PER and fiberglass…
I’m not going to vaccum bag. I wouldn’t say I’m a master but I have worked with carbon for a while now so I’m ok. I don’t have a digital camera but basically when you look at the trunk of a car…picture a mold made of that. So the L-shape is pretty intense. Any ideas???
what is it a trunk of? so I can get a better idea so I can help
Hi,
Its the trunk of a 97 Camry.
For Michael Waltrip’s car?
Anyone worked with a similar type mold before? What should I do to avoid the resin sliding down while I work on the other side?
you shouldn’t have a problem with resin “running” if you do you’re using too much.
get a resin that is thicksotropic (sp?) and it will cling a bit more to verticle walls
…or use gel coat as the reinforcement resin for the first layer or so. Pull it out of the car after it dries and then use lamination resin to build it up.
I got an idea for you while driving over to my former classroom today:
Can you cut out cardboard / poster board templates, remove them, then resin coat them, tehn reinstall them and resin in the base then?
Hmm, not sure what you mean by that. I’m working off a mold so I don’t know what you mean by taking it off the car either. Please explain.
You made it sounded like you were working in the trunk area of the car instead of a mold.
If it is a mold, lay up one side of it and let it B stage or fully cure. Then tilt it and lay the other side then.
Don’t load up the resin so much that it runs and look into some thixotropic layup resin.
Ok, I will try things out. Thanks