Resin in cells of Nomex Honeycomb

General Composites Discussions Composites Talk
#1

Hi folks,

   Strange question for you folks.  I am a pen turner that uses a lathe to turn pens out of different materials.  One of those materials is nomex.  What I do is fill the cells of the honeycomb with a clear polyester resin with a color additive depending on what look I am going for and then turn them on a lathe.  One problem I see is the resin doesn't bond to the Nomex and I get tear-out when turning.  Does anyone know of the same material pre nomex coating that is available that might allow for the resin to bond to the paper giving me more stability as turning?

Mike B

#2

I’m thinking Epoxy or Vinylester will yield you a better outcome and last longer. I almost forgot, using heat to post cure will surely give a stronger linking even with poly.

Very cool work your doing there. More pix of it will put a smile on our faces!

#3

Adding coloidal sílice will avoid tearing and improve bonding. It´ll became a gel or filler depending of amount added. BUT try not to add too much as resin becomes more brittle when silica is added.

Be careful with epoxies as filling such a thickness COULD cause exotherm (resin´s extra heating and “bubbleing”/burning)

Ps: Beautiful job ! Nice to see resins are not always an smelly mess !

#4

Very interesting and unique! Epoxy certainly would help surely and removing moisture from the Nomex prior to bonding the resin

#5

The pour of resins haven’t been an issue. It is more when turning on a lathe the individual cells are not bonding as well to the nomex as with other materials I do so they are acting as independent cells. What would be ideal is getting the honeycomb material from a source that hasn’t applied the nomex process to it. That way my resin would be the material that soaks into the cardboard and not the nomex resins.

Also, here are a couple other pictures of what has been done by others using my pen blanks. The 1st one is from a gentleman in Texas, the other is from Canada…

#6

You might try contacting Tricel. They make a variety of paper based honeycombs. I don’t know if they have something that will work for you but it’s worth a shot.

#7

Hi, it looks very nice , If i didnt know honeycomb I would think its a graphic.

…apart from that, I dont know exactly what you need but Im sure polyester resin is the worst choice for such project, especialy as its bonding strenth is very looow

#8

Its looks beautiful.
You can try using Prepreg …

#9

Prepreg? That doesn’t make any sense. The desired result is resin filled cells not a laminate.
Also Nomex is a type of paper the honeycomb is produced from. It is not a coating. The coating that is used to make Nomex honeycomb is phenolic.

#10

You could use epoxy. There are epoxies for casting for jewelry and counter tops. You can buy it at arts and crafts or dick blick. It takes a long time to cure, as to avoid exotherm, and also cures water clear.

Those look nice!

#11

Thanks but it is epoxy and I buy it by the 5 gallon bucket, so craft stores aren’t any good unless I want to buy cases at 8oz a time…

#12

Your first post says you are using polyester. Now you say it’s epoxy. Are you sure what you are actually using?

#13

yah if it were polyester you should know by the smell…

and I mention the craft store if you wanted to test it out… you’d have to be crazy to buy 5 gallons of something without testing it for your application. You can get ‘bar top’ epoxy for casting in thick sections that cures water clear in large quantities.