No not now… I use a material from another company which is in my opinion better and a lot cheaper. But not for sale to the public yet… I have had the second roll they made and have been one of the few people testing it… I have been lucky being given the opportunity to test it…
here is one I pulled from the mould this morning…
This is untrimmed so you may see the excess resin flash which needs to be removed… This really is directly out of the mould…
I really need to start using prepreg… I don’t know why I didn’t start doing so a year ago. Could you please state which exact prepreg you are using? Also is your mold tool made of epoxy?
How many layers of cf and ounce weight of cloth? Have you considered using kevlar in your design?
How are you curing the laminate?
Great work! This looks really good! Eventually I want to get into prepregs.
Thanks guys. I cannot at the moment say what the Pre-preg I am using is… As it is not on the company’s website at the moment i think I need to wait until they are offering it officially there too. I have looked at using diolen which is better for abrasion than Kevlar as it does not slough and turn to fluff. It will melt and self seal until it cannot melt and seal any more. I did a test with Carbon only (3 layers of 200 gr) and 1 layer of carbon with 2 layers of diolen as well as the same with Carbon and carbon/kevlar. The carbon kevlar jammed up the die grinder wheel after 10 seconds or so and had not broken through but on the road tarmac will not clog up so the test was moot. Carbon lasted 6 seconds before a hole appeared and the carbon and Diolen lasted 22 seconds before a hole appeared. For a bike to slide for 20 seconds is rare. So Diolen is the material i would chose for abrasion.
Ok using pre-preg is great if you understand vac bagged wet lay too. You have an idea of air paths and how to bag up. You also start to get a feel for bridging in a bag ect. You dont need more consumables and only need to start off with an oven as big as the parts you currently make and it can be basic with just a fan heater, basic controller and a box made of MDF and some thought. my first oven I just rewired the heater to run the heater element from the controller and wired up the fan to run from its own plug. I am still using that setup with the same heater I first started with. (A 3kw heater) My MDF oven is 4feet wide, 4 feet deep and 4 feet high. It works perfectly with that heater and now I use a ramp and dwell controller to just make the process 100% repeatable and not need to go back and forth to change temp settings at different times…
Just to give an idea of scale I use the oven as a Mountain bike garage when I am not using it as an oven…
OK anyone asking what material I am using please wait… at the moment the company only have a development number for it not an actual material name or series number for it. I spoke to the supplier today and it is close to being launched and they are coming to see me next week. It will be launched soon I think in a few weeks not months. My parts are great and I am happy with the results so any fine tuning now can only improve it a little more which seems hard to do… But please wait and I will let you know what it is as soon as I can…
Great morepower! Looking forward to hear!
Your oven will also work great for housing a noisy air compressor… it will cut down on noise. Just a thought.
Morepower, May I ask what type of resin and surface coat you used to make the actual mold?
Also can you state which prepreg you were using formerly that gave such good cosmetic surface results? Not the new prepreg.
Good tip…
The resin used for the mould is a normal vinylester tooling gel coat which does take the heat I need it to take and although the guy who made the moulds for me says it is a hybrid resin for the body of the mould it seems very much like optimould and I have used optimould to good effect with other moulds.
The material I had been using to get a good surface was VTF261 which is sold by Cytec (ACG or whoever they call themselves this week) Which is the same material sold as EasyPreg. BUT I did no use their backing material and a PRF material is perfect to use with it and much cheaper for backing up…
http://www.prfcomposites.com/store/index.php?route=product/category&path=59_60
i am your biggest fan 
And this vinylester tooling resin can take the temperatures needed for prepreg? In what temperatures you are curing? Didnt ask for the prepreg … just the temp 
The resin system the mould maker used will take 110 degrees easily but I run at between 70 and 80 degrees…
New tank moulds…
Tank shell at 876 grams…
Finished…
Inspirational! Amazing work!
Look amazing morepower. What type of resin do you use to make the fuel tank? I red that fuel tanks would be made of vinylester resin to avoid reaction with the gasoline.
I use pre-preg for the tank but seal them with a modified phenol novolac resin sealer. I also make my own adhesive from that same resin I use for the sealer. Pre-pregs are OK with the petrol but may be attacked by the ethanol so the phenol novolac is there to seal against the ethanol.
Love this.
Could you make me one please for a rs125?
Thanks
lee