Flat vacuum/infusion table

Hello,
I am wondering what most use for flat layup tables, such as doing small vacuum bagged or even infused projects on.

Would melamine work? Or even formica, or a vinyl surface? If premade coating such as these could work for multiple projects would you wax them and PVA them just as a mold tool?

I have seen tests for resin infusion done on flat surfaces that look like melamine.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Jack

 

Hi, this might help
http://www.mycv.asn.au/gallery/Kelsall/default.htm

rgds

 

Yes I've seen those tables at their site, I think inovationlaminations.com uses the same.

I'm wondering what they are made out of. Is it a wood core, foam core? Or is that glassed like a typical mold tool with black tooling gelcoat on the top? It looks like I can see the seam on that black table top on the link you provided to Kelsall.

Or what are the table that ployworx use?

http://www.polyworx.com/apz/slov1/s1bulk/
Looks like melamine or the like to me.

Would melamine work?

 

http://www.kssboat.com/kss1/id5_m.htm

Ok with a little more searching there, I found what I wanted in the above link which I'll post here:

"The Table
The Table is a high gloss black melamine on a chip board backing of ¾ inches. Lamination of the table can be achieved by the home builder or obtained from a kitchen work top laminator. In this case, the later was procured from Ascend Manufacturing in Gilroy California, in three 8 x 4 sheets. Larger sheets are also available, (up to 12ft by 5ft). This meant that two joins had to be made which was a achieved by screwing 6 x 4 ft melamine sheets under the joins. The joins were then filled with putty to prevent resin from seeping into the table.
While any high gloss surface color can be used, black is selected to make it easier to gauge gel coat thickness. The surface material used is table top variety rather than the thinner vertical mount materials used for cabinet doors. The legs for the table consisted of standard saw horses from Home Depot placed evenly along the table.
The table is then waxed with mold releasing wax, in this case 3 coats were applied to the table to ensure an easy release of the hull panels from the table. (Here we see laying down the resin on top of the gel coat for the first layer of fiberglass)"

Thanks for that first link it helped me find this one.

-Jack

 

Are you planning on building a KSS boat? This to me looks like a pretty slick way to build a nice cat. Based on your post, it looks like you are planning on fabbing your own panels as opposed to purchasing a kit. Do you have any pros/cons between purchase/fab?

Thanks,
Tom