Infusion Plan

Neat to see the "time lapse" photo sequence. Congrats on pulling off a nice piece of work.
And yeah, as with most things, there are those persistent nagging doubts, which run around in your head about whether you perhaps forgot something, up until the part's cured, pulled out & inspected. I know the feeling well.

 

sorry i forgot to add Jorge, the multipanel stack method i envisaged, was using infusion grid scored and perforated core material. The perforations are at 20mm centers, and all the cores becomes a multi layered flow media. It should infuse pretty quick... The perforated film between panels would be something like P16 btw...

 

Thanks for the comments all. Tungsten, the glass wraps but just to the bottom edge.

Groper that makes sense.

I have a question. If I stack a couple of layers with the infusion flow between them and the outlet at the top of the stack, will the resin also flow to the bottom of the stack, away from the outlet?

 

Of course... but you would have to center feed so the resin does not converge to the center against the table where you can't fit a vacuum outlet...

 

So no peelply on the top just glass?And your vac outlet has no spiral its just sitting ontop of the glass?When did you clamp off the feed?

Thanks again.

 

Center Feed ... ok let me try that, thanks

Tungsten, sorry ... starting from bottom I have
Bag
flow media
perf release
peel ply
glass
1" perfecd corecell
glass
peel ply
bag

 

Your question earlier points to what I've been saying in other threads about vacuum. It's not the vacuum that sucks the resin along... A vacuum by itself can not do any work, it's simply an empty space that is devoid of anything.

It's the atmospheric pressure that does the work and pushes it in. So resin doesn't just flow toward th vacuum outlet, it will flow in any direction from a point of high pressure towards any region of lower pressure.

 

I get that but seems to contradict dry spots … when resin racetracks and isolates the vac source … it seems the resin should still flow to the dry spot

 

When you get a dry spot encircled by resin, the resin does keep converging and the dry spot gets smaller! Then as the dissolved air in the resin (foaming resin front) starts filling the dry spot and raising the pressure in the now encircled zone, the pressure in that part increases until there is no longer a vacuum anymore. Then the dry spot remains the same size from that point onwards....

 

ok that makes sense ... BTW I didn't infuse stacked but I did stack 2 layers of scrap and the resin made it ... I guess once the glass is wet out, the resin flows more freely, it did not slow down on the second layer.

 

With regards to dry spots … This is what happens when people at work think your still at work just because you are there.

I kept getting pulled away to do stupid things and in the confusion ran the flow media as one piece under the panels, I didn't realize it till i had mixed the resin so I had to let her go.

In the end I got lucky, it was another perfect bag and the dry spot is located right in a cut out. I should have thrown a couple more outlets, one for each panel just in case, not even run a hose to them unless I needed to.

 

Lucky yep... If that were me, I would have made 1 panel... Then cut it into 3 afterwards... It simplifies things... I also found I was cutting the panels regardless when infusing individual random shaped panels because of several reasons. Either trimming off the flash around the perimeter, or trimming them down to simply fit more precisely. So I figured I might aswell cut up bigger panels and make the infusions easy as I was cutting or grinding glass either way... No cutting and fitting of dry glass, dry peel ply, dry flow media, perf film, it all goes down straight off the rolls... And setting the bag and pleats is a cinch without all the complex shapes to go around ... Easy infusions not only fast to setup, but were less prone to stuff ups like dry spots, and used less consumables... Like I said a while back, with simple rectangular panels, I could set up an entire 200sqft preform, apply the bag, and have the resin infused, between breakfast and lunch time working alone... With the stacking panel infusion, I reckon I will make all my panels for a large boat in a single weekend...

When you get a perfect bag, the introduced air is at a minimum... Whatever is in the resin, minus what gets evacuated before the entrapment. So your dry spots kept infusing and ended up quite small all things considered.

 

for these parts I agree, even as much as I dislike cutting them after but I was going for the infuse already assembled idea.

The stacked panels will def work and it doesn't need to be cut and perfd core, that resin just keeps flowing as long as the outlet isn't blocked.

I think next build I want to try a mold unless I figure out an easy way to make form fitting bags. Setting up the part like I did was not hard aside from the bag issue.

 

Hi guys, nice to see more activity going on. Groper, I really like the idea of doing a stack of panels and see no reason it would not work.
Jorge, im curious as to what you see as the advantage of feeding from the bottom when infusing on a table, it seems like you create a lot more consumable waste (cost and environment ) while giving up the advantage of having one molded surface.
Another question i have is the reason for the perf film in addition to the peel ply, so far i have not used the perforated release film as i have not seen a reason to do so as i have never had any difficulty in peeling with the peel ply alone.

Steve.

 

Hi Steve,

I needed a peel ply finish on both sides so it was the same amount of consumables, one side needed flow media regardless I am using perf'd not cut and perf'd.

As for feeding from the bottom, it's logical, it puts my outlet a bit further from the resin front since it's on top... it's almost like having a resin break built in.

I don't know how you manage flow media without a release film, I had some release media shift once and the flow media was laying on top of peel ply, it made it extremely difficult to peel off, can't imagine trying to do a whole part like that.

I don't use release film if it's only peel ply on the laminate.