Infusion Plan

this is what I mean about fishbones going up transom

 

Hi Jorge - Have a Happy Christmas. Personally I disagree with the fishbone approach entirely. It makes a complicated flow front and at the end of the day provides nothing in the way of reducing your resin line length. As drawn I'd expect your radiating lines will need to be longer. The "end" of the fish ribs act as point feeds and as such do not have much capacity to fill the part in as you have drawn up. There are two starategies to adopt. A linear approach in which you fill from the middle outward(or from one end to the other) in 600mm steps say. So you would have a central feed running down your keel line then a parallel runner every 600mm outward. The 600mm is defined by how far your laminate and infusion stack can handle. Some can flow 500mm some can flow 1500mm. You have to do tests to figure this but you should know from your prior fills how far your flow front can get. The other approach is to fill from the outside inwards. This gives the advantage of a deminishing length flow front. eg you could move your central ring line out ward a bit so it was 300mm from the edges and I'd expect it would fill out to the edge and inward to the middle quite well. A ring feed line flows further then a linear fill strategy perhaps double so you could have 1' to the edges and 3' to the middle if that makes sense? See you in the New Year!! Peter

 

Hi jorge...

First, make sure there the transition from the hull to the tunnel is very smooth, and also the tunnel part itself as i notcied you strip planked it. So no little ridges for the laminate stack to bridge over, or cracks for resin to race track through... The only real problem area might be the hull to transom fillet and tunnel fillet which you have taken care of putting the feed lines there, try to make sure the stack doesnt bridge in this area over the lines when you suck it down or you will get very big resin rich blobs around the lines which youll end up having to grind off. Take the time to tuck and wrap the bag neatly around the lines, i find it easiest under a very slight vacuum to hold things together whilst you manipulate everything where you want it.

Your layout looks fine really... theres more than 1 way to do it as peter points out, what you fell comfortable with and understand is your best option... I did an infusion vertical downhill the other day, against good practice... but i didnt have any problems with it as i had a very good vacuum well over 30inches, no leaks... epoxy infusion seems to be reasonably tolerant of bad practice and mistakes, provided you have a very strong vacuum and also no leaky areas...

Make sure you measure the distances from the runners to the edge of the laminate, they should all be similar... it looks like the top edges of the transom in front of the sponsons are closer to the horizontal runners at the back of the boat... shouldnt matter with the MTI hose, but you never know

 

Thanks for the great responses, I feel much more comfortable than before but Im far from confident, lol.

I think the ring feed idea might actually do it because the laminate stack is thinnest away from the tunnel. I have to measure to be sure but I could probably eliminate most of those legs radiating outward, except maybe the ones forward toward the bow or up the tall part of transom.

Groper, yes on all those things you mentioned. The bag won't bridge - hull to transom - as I have about a 2.5 inch 45° fillet there but at the tunnel I am a little worried. It's very smooth as I have faired and sanded the hell out of it but it's the most severe angle change. I did apply one layer of glass by hand and I am as confident as I can be that there are no possible race tracking cracks, ridges or leaks.

Ok so thanks again. I will post pics of what happens. Enjoy the holidays!

 

What happened?

 

Everything is ready to go but ran out of slow hardener. I will get the slow hardener at end of month according to Gurit, the mfg.

In the meantime I have some fast hardener that I am going to use to infuse the console. The platform is already bagged, probably shoot that tomorrow. I will post pics if I do. If the resin kicks to fast, I won't mind scrapping that panel.

If all goes well, hopefully infuse the console on Saturday. I will post pics of that first, I hoped to do both sides at same time unless somebody sees a problem with that.

 

Thanks for the update!

 

Here is a picture of the console. Note that it is in two pieces since I have to do some extra work on the inside and I want easy access.

I'm almost considering doing a hand layup but I the idea of shooting it standing as is appeals to me. I could put a resin hose along the base in and out and subsequent hoses running horizontal spaced accordingly. The vac hose would be along the top.

I would make a bag to envelope it completely. That might be the trickiest part.

Vertically seems to be the easiest way to attach cloth and all the other mediums.

I would infuse using the fast hardener if it works on the experimental panel/console base in the bkg.

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i know that you like to tinker and get experience with infusion stuff, but for all this flat surface stuff (no compound curvature), one of the most efficient methods for this type of thing would be to infuse a developed flat panel on a table mold like i have. Then origami the flat panel into your console by folding it all up as if it were a peice of paper or peice of sheet metal etc... Kerf Cut the inside skin, fold it then then tape over it etc. The advantage is you can get a dead flat shiney surface of the melamine table for your exterior side that will require no fairing, you simply scuff the surface and your ready to start painting it. All the tape joins can be made on the inside of this peice where a perfect fairing job is not nessesary, or dont fair it at all, just block it out with a paint fleck job. You will need to perforate your core to infuse both sides at once on a tool/table if you go this route however...

 

Yeah, I wish I had known before and I would have bought the perf'd core. For what is left, the deck, it doesn't really matter, it's most likely going to get a faux teak or seadeck or texture treatment. I am not fairing the inside of the hull, that is completely sealed up so I just have the outside to deal with and now this console.

If I do it again, which I plan on, things will be much different.

 

Quick question, I infused the hull in one shot because I was told it would be stronger than infusing the panels separately and then taping them together, is that incorrect?

Would it have been as strong to infuse the hull as panels, with one side nice and smooth, and then tape them together?

 

Totally depends on what the tape schedule is... if the tape is sufficient, the join will be as strong or stronger than than the panel. This requires a heavier laminate than the face skins of the panel with sufficient overlap. I typically use 150% heavier schedule than the panel skin for the taping with 3x panel thickness overlap, which probably results in a slightly weaker join than the rest of the panel. If you goto 200% tape schedule, you end up with a stronger join than the panel. More detail on this and other helpful stuff can be read here;

http://www.mcgillcorp.com/public/mcg_msds/doorway_file/97_Fall.pdf

 

That is a great link, thanks!

Edit - they suggest butt splice of core with no adhesive? I did a test butt joining core with epoxy, no glass, and then stressing it the same way ( more or less) as in their test and the foam core broke but not at the joint. I wonder why the test is with no adhesive on joint?

This is something we always used to test with wood, a proper glue joint is always stronger than wood itself.

 

If you used cut core to infuse, does that mean you can lose the infusion flow media and release film.

I tried to find information on how you would lay out the feeds to infuse cut core and don't see any examples. It seems that the resin is going to race through the cuts causing a dry spot in the center of each grid ... or are the grids small enough that doesn't happen?

Also I found what looks to be different types of cut corecell.

This one looks like saw cuts, they are wider



This one looks like its been knife cut, what is going to happen when the core is curved so the cuts close, resin will not get through it seems


This one is made of small blocks of core bonded to a scrim. Maybe this is for hard compound curves

 

found a quick way to knife cut corecell, paper cutter blades. If you space these on a threaded rod would make a handy tool. Cuts very easy, I did these just with my fingers.



... but I am actually wanting to figure out how to get rid of infusion flow media, I saw that one person embossed using chicken wire. I tried using my abs exercise wheel, its prob not the right pattern but it definitely embosses lol and you get in shape at the same time!!