Hello all,
Quick question from a noob, what does everybody use to make the mould for CF parts? I thought about high density foam, but wouldn’t that be too porous? Would the foam itself soak up the resin and cause problems taking it out?
Just making one, or will you be making more than one item from your tooling?
I would like to re-use the moulds if possible.
foam works fine, it’s a little more fragile so you gotta be careful with it.
we use 72lb foam and it’s fine. YOu just have to seal the foam before releasing and it’s good.
I feel fine using this product:
http://www.tencate.com/amer/Images/HX42_V13_DS_Web_08191329-25472.pdf
So you are forming your mold out of foam then coating it with this resin then curing it to use a mold?
Depends on your process you intend to make your parts. If youre just do infusion with low temp cure, probably fiberglass/epoxy mould is good enough. If you intend to cure at higher temperatures or do prepreg, typically you would make a carbon/epoxy mould. However youre not limited to these, just some very basic guidelines. Perhaps you can describe in more details what youre trying to accomplish, and your intended process.
Since I work regularly with Creo solid modelling software, and have access to CNC milling machines, I was thinking I could create parts in Creo, mill out a, “negative” of the part I want to create, then make it out of CF. The foam I have however seems like it might soak up the resin and cause problems taking the part out of the mould, or possibly mess up the finish on the part.
Not really.
I use this carbon prepreg to make the mould over a suitable pattern/master.
50°C. are enough for the initial curing.
To take advantage of your CNC machine access there are a few options.
Machine foam and seal to mould from.
Machine foam undersize by 2mm, apply filler coating then re-machine to finish size for a better surface. Then also seal to mould out of.
Machine tooling board which gives a great surface to seal and will also be capable to use at higher temp with oven processing.
Machine metal moulds for a high end tooling.
Pull a high stretch vacbag over your foam mould, the easiest way.
Where I currently work we machine moulds for the composite industry. Direct moulds out of foam with an epoxy paste applied, the machined and sanded smooth. Apply a sealer and semi perm and you have quite a good quality. no mirror gloss, but good enough for painting.
Vac bag. That would work!