Simple 12"sq flat panels, but I gotta start somewhere!
One S glass, and one E glass, 0.25" stack with a top caul plate. We thought the S would take 4+hrs to infuse, so we thinned and added an inhibitor.
Took 20min.
the E glass took an hour!
Now, to let the VERY SLOW VER to cure. Hee.
Caul Plate? What did you use for flow medium?
OR, did you just use the glass itself to determine the flow of the resin.
I put both glass panels next to each other, inlet tube on top of the one side of the glass, and vent on the other side. The caul plates were placed directly on the glass (12x12"), so I had a few inches on each side to put the tubes.
Used about 2" of flow medium on the inlet side.
I used the caul plates because I was told to have a smooth surface on both top and bottom.
I’m about to rip off the bagging and see what happened.
in which the caul plate made from plexi, promptly shattered as I tried to pry it off.
Hmmm…not using THAT material again.
Made some simple motorcycle sidepanels earlier, using CSM and hand lay up process. Took around 20 minutes altogether, and with materials costing about £1.50, the finished parts sell for £50 pair. Wonder if I would have had such a good return using the RTM process?
While I agree with you that CSM/hand layup makes for great return on your investment. There are other things to focus on other than profit margin.
At the end of the day its how much money you made (after expenses), and not really the size of the margin that got you that money.
My point was that if I had used RTM to make those parts, it would have been more costly and taken longer. If you are making items on a commercial basis, the main thing to consider is obviously the money you are likely to make.
Personally I have found making small numbers of high quality parts for older bikes, that are otherwise unavailable anywhere in the world, is something that is very lucrative and also quite satisfying, in that you are helping out with things that are impossible for people to get hold of otherwise.
so, 5 times later, I finally got the right mix ratio, for the RIGHT RESIN, and I got at least 10% voids.
a
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g
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So monday I get to do it AGAIN! This time checking it every 10min to let more epoxy in there.
But monday, I get to autoclave more thermoplastic CF panels for testing, along with seeing when certain materials melt, and how to combine them with fabrics.
RIFF: Your the guy who just quit your job and went on to a new one right? And from your old job Im guessing you had stiff rules about voids. Try to not overlap ANY flow medium and see if it helps. Im curious to see what happens with your void content.
Never had any rules about voids in my last job. Obviously, now that I do research, things have to be perfect!! And there was NO flow medium!
The Problem seems to lay in caul plate. The bag is not sucking down on the fabric, so when the vac. pulls all the resin out, it is sucking air voids into it. We are going to try by letting resin slowly in every 10 min until it gels.
Does the caul plate have 90 degree edges or are they radius’?
Air can also get into your part via a bridging bag on the resin inlet. The thing Ive found is that if they is ANY air in the bag before the resin is let go, you can end up with quite a bit of air in the part. Asside from an empty resin line.
Not to sound beginerish on you (because I know your not), but, are you letting the resin sit for a bit after you catylize it?
Oh no man, I AM new at VARTM! I’m used to thermoset prepregs and wet hand-layup N bag.
The plates are flat 1/8" Aluminum sheets. Simple. Yeah, I figured that if there are any air bridges it can trap it JUST until you don’t want it too!
We ended up using some peelply right before the vent, so the extra resin took it’s time to travel through a layer of peelply before it hit the vent tube.
Now, why it wasn’t fully cured this morning when I came in, is another problem…
Might have done my math wrong (though, checked by 2nd party), and added a bit too much inhibitor!
And something like that. Only a layer of peelply to suck the resin through, on the left.
Not shown is the 1/16" tube as a bypass in the vent line, to only allow a small amount of vacuum when the main line is clamped.