This book is great!

General Composites Discussions Composites Talk
#1

“Fiberglass & Other Composite Materials” 2006 copyright.

It just arrived today from Amazon.com. I’ve read about 1/3rd of it already. For some reason I’m one of those slow readers, but i retain a good amount of info.

The book talks about everything from choosing the fabric, mat, etc. A little about choosing epoxies or poly, or ver. As i said i haven’t read it all yet.

I’m going to make my second real part out of fiberglass mat, 10 oz cloth, and PER. I can’t spray gelcoat because i don’t have an air compressor or $100 for that low tech gel coat gun. I was thinking of just poping the part out of the female mold, then finishing it with top coats of PER, sanding it and filling any low spots with kitty hair bondo, then primer and paint the parts.

These will be those seat cowl parts. Depending on how well the plaster mold holds up I’d like to make 3-5 of these parts. One for my own motorcycle.

I did buy some Epoxy resin and slow hardener, but want to save that for a bigger project using c/f and kevlar.

Anyways, this book is great for begginers.

#2

That is why I list that book first…

#3

pats self on shoulder

I told u it was a good book lol

that is the first one I got 4 years ago

#4

It’s an excellent read, thanks for mentioning it. :cool:

I want to make some plugs out of plaster because it is easy to work ywith. Where do i buy the plaster from that is good for this purpose. HomeDepot or Lowes, or is that different stuff?

#5

Interesting you mentioning plaster, I just read a PDF file on making a mold for a speaker enclosure and they used plaster to make their mold.

#6

Plaster is not that easy to work with, and you might find it easier to use polyester car body filler, to get the final shape of your plug.

#7

Yeah, I shuddered when I read they used plaster in that PDF file. I prefer floral foam myself.

#8

How would i use car body polyester filler to make a mold? That stuff is sticky as hell so as soon as i apply that over the plug wouldn’t my plug become permanently attached? Or were you thinking of waxing and PVA the plug? Would that keep it from sticking after the bondo body filler dries? I’m a wiz with poly body filler, i’ve used it for years, but this would be a whole new purpose.

oh duhhh ( stupid me) you said for the final shape of the plug. Yep I planned on doing that. I’m using white styrofoam 1.5" thick for the plug, tape over it with metal foil tape, then use bondo for the final shaping like you said Classicbike.

#9

Sorry…I thought you were building a plug, but you want a mold right?

If you use bondo to make a mold you’ll have to seal the plug with tape or wax or pva or something. Or you could seal with pva and brush on the gelcoat. Also, I’ve made a mold with just poly resin and CSM, it made 5 or 6 parts which was all I needed.

I suck at bondo royally! I end up wasting 90% of what I’ve mixed because it hardens on me. I barely use and hardener too.

#10

Simple poly and CSM moulds that are well made will produce hundreds of parts. They are also cheap to make, and you can have several of these for the cost of one mould made from more expensive materials.

#11

Is there a book anyone recommends that deals in carbon fiber only?

#12

Prepregs aside (you don’t see aramid or fiberglass prepregs often), there aren’t really any procedural differences in fiberglass vs aramid vs carbon vs other. You can infuse all of the above, you can hand lay all of the above, you can vac bag all of the above. You can use cores with all of the above.

The only incompatibility I can think of is polyester or vinyl ester resins don’t play well with aramids.