Urgent advice needed on the best of these 2 mould systems!

General Composites Discussions Composites Talk
#1

Hi everyone,

Sorry to create another thread about this but I need some urgent advice as im sending my current mould system back for an exchange tomorrow.

What would be the better mould set up for epoxy resin infusion and maybe one day working with pre pregs? The first system is slight more expensive than the 2nd.

1 - Epoxy high temp gel coat backed with fiberglass and high temp epoxy resin.

2 - Hi temp vinylester gel coat backed with fiberglass and high temp polyester resin.

Thanks

#2

high temp epoxy with carbon laminate if doing prepregs

#3

hi hojo, would 200gsm plain weave be ok to do the laminate? how many layers do you think id need?
thanks

#4

it would be ok for the the first and last layers. Twill would be better. You would want to use 6k and 12k twill for bulking. Thickness depends on the size and geometry of the part. usually 1/8"-1/4" thick. make sure your laminate is symetrical and balanced.

#5

Is there any other backing material I can use to work with prepregs, as the amount of carbon id need would get very expensive?
Thanks

#6

You could use fiberglass prepreg if CF prepreg is too expensive

#7

some thoughts, I recently did some research for a new mould building materials.
The reinforcement in the mould should be the same as the product. This to minimize the difference in thermal expansion.
Backing material on the mould: I used a sort of epoxy concrete from axson, wasn’t too happy about it. somehow it wasn’t formstable. I used mixfill from sicomin too, for mixing my own epoxy concrete. tested different mixes, but all where quite brittle and weak. Best results I got with a epoxy gelcoat(of some sort) with a balanced laminate behind it. I still need to do some tests with a foamcore in the laminate, because of print trough (and foam is a lot cheaper as a full carbon laminate :wink: )