I want to make prepreg. Suggestions, please.

Hello, anybody make his own prepreg?. I want to make it, the price of prepreg I saw is so high.

Im thinking to impregnate the CF with the resin that I use to laminate but using lower ratio of catalyst, to make the pot life longer.

What do you think?

I believe it was forum user wyowindworks who posted a video on youtube about homemade prepreg;

[ame=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_tDQTgdsCg”]DIY Carbon Fiber Prepreg. How to Make Your Own Pre Preg Carbon Fiber - YouTube[/ame]

Oh, yes, very good idea. Use a lot less hardener, and you will have a lot of fun. (scraping off the remains of what used to be something you laminated, for instance)

Prepreg resins are completely different from laminating resins, in that they do not reach a full cure at room temperature. You will need to source some prepreg resin otherwise succes will be very limited.

Going on what herman says about needing a prepreg resin - Sicomin do an in-situ prepreg resin (http://www.matrix-composites.co.uk/prod-data-sheet/old/si-2k-cold-preg.pdf), which I assume could be used to make your own prepreg.

http://www.fibermaxcomposites.com/shop/-p-1058.html?osCsid=a754084f7321015e23673d993ab2f48b
this company sells proper resin for this kind of application. i haven’t tried that specific one but my experience from the other resins they sell is great.

Yes, I saw this video and give me the idea to make my own prepreg.
The links of the prepreg resin shops are greats, thats I was looking for.

resins that you have posted the exact same curing times and temperatures … they are the same?

Not sure, to be honest - same curing times and temps, but different viscosity and density.

The characteristics of the two resins posted by .kyle and jmff1 are Yellowish tone. Are suitabe for cosmetic?

the resins i use from this supplier have also yellowish tone when they are in liquid state but when they cure they are totally transparent.

Do you usually buy to fibermaxcomposites, I saw they dont accept paypal and the minimum order is 200€.

Do you usually buy to fibermaxcomposites?, I saw they dont accept paypal and the minimum order is 200€.

yes, i always buy materials from them. i don’t have the minimum order restrictions you mention probably because its a domestic purchase and i don’t use paypal to pay them.
send them an email telling them what you need to buy and i think they will help you.

I’ve used this method in lieu of a in-mold wet out of carbon fabric. I would lay my fabric out over rb-125 (cheap release film), mix up some laminating resin, degas, and then squeegee it onto the fabric. To get a full wet out you will inevitably start to add air bubbles to the now-wetted-out fabric.

This also didn’t yield a pinhole free surface as I was hoping. I tried many (and I mean many: over 30) different environmental and process variables to try and eliminate pin holes with this method, and I never got satisfactory results.

For Sicomin resins in Spain, contact:

Espagne

MEL COMPOSITES

Materiales Estructurales Ligeros S.L
Ctra. Barcelona 88-B, (2º-1ª)
Pol. Ind. Les Hortes
08302 – Mataró – Barcelona

+34 93 741 54 54

+34 93 799 46 00

mel@melsl.es
www.melcomposites.com

For the sake of my sanity, if that company will sell you a metre of pre-preg for 100Euros I would buy it from there, especially if you are just messing around.

To buy all the bits and pieces that you will need to make the pre-preg, not forgetting the mess and time factor it makes 100Euros seem cheap!

Just my opinion, otherwise why not use infusion or wet-lay techniques?

That!
Or try to buy from an other end user as posted.
Homemade prepreg might have some advantages over wet layup/vacbagging, because it’s a bit more stable to work with, with a longer open time, but you won’t have the precise amount of resin wich normal prepreg has, and which is the big advantage to your laminate quality. Vacuum infusion is a better solution to reach top quality laminates without “real” prepregs.
The better(easier) OoA prepregs for good quality surface and clear coated carbon look are the ones with a resin film on dry fibre anyway in my opinion, air evacuation is much easier with those.
(offcourse you could buy glue film and apply it over the fibre, but that would be nasty to work with. It is being done however…)

I never hear about those prepregs, can you link me to one of them?

If you want to buy small, retail sized quantities, easycomposites sells a line surface layer prepreg

http://easycomposites.co.uk/products/carbon-fibre/pre-preg/easy-preg-surface-layer.aspx