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we should be all be noting temps with appropriate F or C.
bought myself some clear gelcoat. What is the different using epoxy or polyesterresin on carbon? Can the epoxy be used with the clear gelcoat?
Willing to try the clear gelcoat, let it dry (same as with the mold I believe?) and then try the polyesterresin on the carbon. Some how the epoxy doesn’t work that well for me with the vacuum… Is every epoxy suited to be used with vacuum? Is my vacuum to high (-0,9 bar). Still think it sucks out to much epoxy out…
Attached 2 pictures… you can see it didn’t work out that great. :mad: :mad:
This is what I’ve tried…
The one with the white matarial in it:
- waxed in the mold
- aplied a clear gelcoat
- let it dry till stage b
- aplied a layer of epoxy resin on the gelcoat
- then a layer of carbon/resin (3 layers in total)
- did the peelply on
- the bleeder on it
- vacuumbagged it
- let it run for about 10 hours
- removed it from the mold
The one with only carbon in it:
- waxed the mold
- aplied a layer of epoxy (added some aerosil to thick it up a bit)
- let the epoxy dry a bit
- aplied new resin
- a layer of carbon
etc etc etc
It doesn’t look at anything that I was trying to achieve! What more can there be done??? How do I get a stronger carbon object and how do I get a nice brighy and shiny top layer?
You don’t necessarily need a clear coat application. We make parts very similar to yours every day here in my shop. All I do is:
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Brush on a thin, not running, layer of epoxy resin in to the mold. The epoxy will look as though it is not covering the mold very well but that is OK.
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Lay the CF into the resin covered mold. Wet out CF as normal.
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vacuum bag.
As I look at your photos you are using way too much resin in your first layer. A VERY thin, unthickened layer of epoxy is all that is needed. Your part will come out looking AS GOOD AS THE MOLD SURFACE! That means that if your mold is not brilliantly shiny your part will be dull.
Hope this helps.
that and it looks like you have a lot of air trapped in the part.
If you have vacuum…INFUSE IT
way less problems.
How do you do an infusion?
Saw a video on google on carbon. They made a mold and in the mold there was a layer of peelply first. Why did they do that?
Basicaly if youre doing vacuum bagging you have sealant tape.
Just put a line coming into the bag and mold…and thats your INLET line. and then have your vac line go to a cup of some sort so you dont suck resin into your pump…you can make a resin trap out of almost anything that will hold vac.
Pull your vac, unclamp your inlet line (thats in a cup of resin) and watch it wet out the part. then clamp it off and let it kick before you take the vac away.
The peel ply should be the last layer you have (BESIDES THE FLOW MEDIA) so that any excess resin can be peeled away from the part.