I called pelican and spoke with an engineer that was really no help. I need to give him specific things like how much I need. Are the same numbers you showed me above with the 1ohms wire going to be the same you recommend for a 5x5 mold also or 4x5 mold?
more area means your resistance will change due to longer wire needed. You need to calculate it. I only gave some examples.
So I ordered some type of fiber reinforced putty from freeman. Of course I didn’t test the stuff to see if it was compatible with poly gel coat and of course it’s not. It just kind of flakes off. However I’m able to make a part hopefully, keep the flanges on and now I can infuse a mold which will be pretty cool.
Any tips on this? I layered the part flanges all the way to the edge of the the crap mold, I plan to envelope back the part due to I don’t want warpage or the gel coat to lift off the flanges. I put about 3-4 layers of 6k carbon around the area.
After unmoleing and tossing that mold I plan to either buy epoxy gel coat, vinyl ester, or just use poly gel cost but use epoxy infusion resin and envelope bag the entire thing again just to get no warpage.
Does this sound like a plan? Has anyone used poly ester gel coat and epoxy infusion resin to make a mold and not have issues? Or should I use an epoxy gel coat. I’m having a very very hard time locating vinyl ester gel coat in the US
Epoxy and polyester dont play nice together, this is why Duratec is such a special product. You can use Duratec as a gelcoat if you’re in a pinch, I wouldn’t try any other polyesters unless they are specifically epoxy compatible. Thing is, a polyester gelcoat isn’t going to take the heat anyway, they are generally only good up to about 65 degrees. You need to make sure you are using products that have a Tg of at least 100C. Duratec has a Tg of 120, but I am yet to test whether it is truly compatible with the X-Preg - I suspect it isn’t.
There’s also really no point in using an epoxy for the reinforcement if you aren’t using an epoxy surface, as it is the surface that the pre-pregs have an issue with. If you used a vinyl ester gelcoat and an epoxy infused mould you would still get pinholes and you may as well have used a cheaper mould system.
If you have an epoxy infusion resin that can take a minimum of 100 degrees, then just get yourself some cab-o-sil and make your own gelcoat using the same resin. The mould won’t polish well so you will need to make sure your pattern has the desired surface finish, but other than that it will work.
On the run link you can see the backingboards in the sands pictures
We used msg as we were only doing 80deg cure
If it was 125/130 we would of used carbon boards
Use is two fold
1st is to support the mould in a uniform manner
2nd is when it’s removed from the pattern an turned over you have a flat stable mould resting on the floor/bench to work in
Sit your frame on foam or rtv so it isn’t in direct contact with the mould and laminate a “join” from the mould to frame
Z preg is old hat look at shd for material you won’t beat them
SHD are the business for everyone in Europe, but outside Europe shipping is just ridiculous. The shipping for a 25m roll costs more than the roll itself, and they won’t guarantee that the material will make it to me within its out-life. A shame, as I would really love to do more with their material.