need help with vacuum infuision

[john1976]

I have just compleated a plug for a 19ft classic style sailing boat and i am now ready to build the mold. i want to build this boat with vacuum infusion process and would like to include the vacuum channel in the mold flange and a thin inner fiberglass mold instead of using a bag and fit the resin feed points into the inner mold.
I have seen this done in a video but they did not show the technical requierments for this method.
If anybody out there has done this type of thing could they please spare me a little time and patience to explain this in detail it would be very much appretiated.
The most important thing i need to know at this moment is how to build the vacuum chanel into the mold and what it needs to look like(mesurments etc) the other things that i need to know is where to place the resin feed points on the inner mold, what vacuum presure should I use or any further information that you might have
the hull is 19ft long, 2.2 meters wide and has a freeboard of 60cm( can post exact drawings if needed)

Any information would be of great value

Thanks
john
P.S just out of curiosety? how do you vacuum infuse a split mold? would the joint in the mold leek?

[Jeff Therrell]

We are new to vacuum infusion but what we have learned is that you need an 8" flange all the way around the mold.Vacuum infusion does not incorporate a built in vacuum channel.You might have it confused with light RTM which has the clamping vac channel and the resin feed channel built into the flange and the mold vac in your inner mold, this system has a hard inner mold about an 1/8" thick.
In our infusion process we use a vacuum bag and colbond for our resin lines in the mold.A 19' inner mold would be hard to handle while loading,I think the bag infusion would work better for you.
We are building a 17' rigid inflatable boat right now and the consumables per boat is only about $150 and that is for the hull and the deck.
Thanks
Jeff Therrell
Performance Engineered Composites

[wet feet]

You might make a call to Colin Evans at Axson UK in Newmarket.He arranged a demonstration that I saw a few months ago and his tame expert has experience with hulls up to 40 feet.Other than having used a lot of their tooling block,I have no connection with the company.

[SamSam]

Originally Posted by john1976

inner fiberglass mold instead of using a bag

John,
It would seem that you would be more than doubling your mold prep and probably "contaminating" with release agents the inside of the hull as far as any other glass work you would do to finish the boat. Sam