Vacuum bagging voids

Hello all,
1st Question:
Can anyone tell how I can eliminate the voids I get around the edges/corners of my foamcore during a vacuum bag lay up? My layup is a lamination of fiberglass, wood, foam core & carbon fiber. I believe my all my layers are wetted out completely before they are placed on the mold. I use a peel ply & bleeder material before putting on the bagging film. I know sometimes pull my bagging film kind of tight and that pleating the bagging film with remove some of these voids. But, I do use a very thin bagging film with lots of stretch. Visually, the bagging film looks like to conforming to all the inside corners very well.

Next question is:
At this point, what the best way to fix these voids? normally my next step is to apply 2 layers of very lightweight cloth (1.45 oz deck cloth) with the vacuum bag applied directly to the part (with bleeder material on the side) to produce a smooth glossy finish. If I use lots of pleats on the next step I am afraid I won’t get a smooth finish.

I am thinking I need to fix these voids before the next step, otherwise I won’t get the nice smooth finish at these problem areas.

Tia,

paul

You need to have more pleats.

If you want a mold quality side finish, you probably need to retool and invert the mold. If you want a perfect finish from the bag side, it’s not gonna happen.

You need to apply very little vacuum initially just to get the to conform and be able to still shift the materials and the bag around , then push it onto the corners and pinch some pleats and slack there so nothing has to stretch , then you will have no voids