9'x9' vac table

Discussion in 'Fiberglass and Composite Boat Building' started by fallguy, Aug 21, 2018.

  1. fallguy
    Joined: Dec 2016
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    Location: usa

    fallguy Senior Member

    Any tips on making a 9x9 table without a ton of epoxy and joints?

    Is anything made wide enough that can be rolled n glued?
     
  2. messabout
    Joined: Jan 2006
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    Location: Lakeland Fl USA

    messabout Senior Member

    Depends on how the table will be used FallGuy. Does it need to be dead flat or can it have a few undulations of a sixteenth of an inch or so. You could build a pretty accurate vac table with some aluminum sheet metal over a ply base. If you want to hold down something like large sheets of paper then you will need a gazillion tiny holes in the sheet metal. So you drill for a while and then a while longer. The ply base would need some grooves spaced the same distance apart in a checker board pattern, to comply with your sheet metal hole pattern. A lot of routing here but the grooves need not be very deep.

    If all you need is a large table to use as a vacuum bagging tool then you do not need many holes in the base. Once again some sheet metal backed with ply over a frame of some sort...................???

    Tell us more about what you need and how it will be used. Name your poison.

    Have I ever built vac tables? Yes. quite a few of them used mainly on printing presses but also a few for laminating glass to wood or metal. The printing press ones had to be flat within a few microns, the laminating ones not so critical.
     
  3. fallguy
    Joined: Dec 2016
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    Location: usa

    fallguy Senior Member

    I already have a 49" x 400" vac table.

    I need a massively wide one for about three-six hits.

    Corecell to corecell stacking 6mm on 12mm and then laminating triax onto both sides and a cabin base 12mm and triax, etc. Building a cockpit with teak inserts; thus the stack.

    I would like to do the table on top of the other table for space considerations, so very temporary. If I use 3/4 plywood, is there any way I can seal the bottom with plastic sheeting say 12x12 and build a real bag?

    Or when I apply vac am I going to lift my part up off the table? I don't mind the slight lines I'll get from the plywood intersections.

    I would be using peelply on the bottom surface; so polyethylene should release, but I might only trust it for a single shot, so I will buy a roll of 10' 6mil plastic.
     

  4. fallguy
    Joined: Dec 2016
    Posts: 7,598
    Likes: 1,674, Points: 123, Legacy Rep: 10
    Location: usa

    fallguy Senior Member

    As long as I am on this subject, if you build a real vac bag and glass and bag a curved part; if you glass and vac on a temp jig, will the vac distort the part? Or flatten it? Think a light, flimsy foam part. I was gonna hand laminate it, but only because I am afraid of distortion and don't know what I can get away with.

    Part is 45" long, 8" wide, strip planked 1" strips with a radius on the 8". It was glued on a jig to match its destination location. Both sides getting 750g triax.

    The only reason to vac it would be lighter and to get both sides in one shot, but breather would only go on the top.

    Like, would you vac bag a curved rooftop? Or would you vac the inside somehow?

    Just wondering the limits.
     
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