Infusion Plan

My problem with the cheap stuff I bought was that it was full of pinholes but I bet I got a bad batch. I ordered the 6 mil and they sent me this super thick 12 mil.... but I do like the large sizes, saves you from taping the darn bag together as I did in my last infusion below.

Infusing in is a nice way to do it as always I had air leaks which I couldn't find till I got underway but I was able to close them off and by the time I left most of the air had been pulled out. I used 2 buckets, one up by the bow and after that infused I poured the remainder in the stern bucket. I calculated pretty closely, had to tip the bucket to finish the infusion.

Ready


open feeds


8 min


11 min


14 min


17 min


20 min


23 min


26 min


29 min

 

Nice...

How long did it take to set the whole thing up?

Any vacuum leaks through the existing substrate?

 

Set up took a few days, it went faster than I thought it would, the day for me would be about 6 hours since I do it after work

Trying to find all the leaks took another couple. I was worried that I might have a leak at the deck to hull join since I wrapped the glass all the way around the flange, I even drilled a hole in the deck so I wouldn't implode the boat but all the leaks turned out to be from my crappy taping job. I also think my tape was not in the best condition, it didn't have much tack to it.

 

Had to take a peek under the bag before starting work,

Looks like I got a nice infusion over the majority of the boat and pretty decent around the transom but there are spots where the laminate wrinkled, I'v got some fairing to do!

Also happy that I wrapped the glass around flange. I am planning to run a wood toe rail, which will overlap the edge and the rub rail will be attached to that, with the glass infused around edge I can feel confident that I am pretty waterproof and should be stronger as well.

I want to see what happens if I infuse wood with resin as my console pod/cabinet and under seat cabinets are also going to be wood as well and clear coated. Infusing them with resin will add weight for sure but I like the idea of really waterproofing them!! If it doesn't work I can always remove them, they will slide into the glass console.

I guess I will need a new resin trap... I didn't clamp the lines till the resin front reached the airlines so I guess I pulled some resin into the trap, man I am glad it didn't burst, this happened some time after I left last night

sorry for poor images, back to my cell phone camera

 

Nice work!Your flow media appears to be much larger then mine.The little diamonds look bigger.The flow front also looks different,kinda blotchy,maybe from the perf release film?
What kind of leak detector u have?R u happy with it?

 

Thanks,

I am using the Airtech Green Flow 75, it's a real pain in the butt to make bends with but it def flows resin nicely.

I think it is the release film that is causing that, the front is actually ahead of the dark area by a few inches and that is a pretty smooth straight line, you can see the dots form as the resin gets sucked into the perforations of the release film.

Here are pics of the mesh and the detector. I thought I had broken it but turns out there is a volume control on the cord that I didn't even know about lol, I found it while taking the thing apart and happily now have it back in action.

I would never ever again do an infusion without one, it hears the leaks you can't hear. I find that at times, if I have multiple leaks you don't hear anything because the air is flowing to easy. Normally with a mold this would not be a problem but that is where a large cfm pump would come in handy )) .. just to detect the leaks that is.

The last pump I had would do that, you could hear every leak with that monster!!

 

Thanks,one of your previous photos looked like much larger squares,i guess not.
Did you use MTI? if so how did resin get in?

 

No MTI Hose for this one, just three, single point outlets

... I didn't clamp the lines till the resin front made it all the way to the outlets, maybe even a couple of minutes after that, I was distracted with checking for leaks, also I think my trap was already weakened from previous infusions ))

I think I could have clamped off the lines when the front reached the end of the flow media which was about 2.5 inches away from the outlet but I figured what the heck, it's the last infusion, I can afford to pull some resin into the trap. That was a close call! ))

 

getting ready to paint soon and I found this - Wearlon Coatings - they have various types of marine paint (water based) including super abrasive resistant for airboats etc …

Supposed to be easy to paint spray or roll and slippery ) Anyone heard of them?

http://www.wearloncorp.com/index.php/product/Wearlon_Speed_Coat-49

 

Jorge some where back in all the pages around when you started.You infused right off of raw foam? I can't remember how things where done.Did you just tape right on the dry foam?

Sorry no help on wearlon.

 

You can do that, but getting it leak free is very difficult ...

 

The foam won't hold a vacuum?

 

It's likely to have porosity which is extremely virtually impossible to find... sealing the tacky tape to the foam is also difficult. I wouldn't recommend attempting it as you may invest a lot of time before realizing that you can't fix all the leaks. I think Jorge had to repair some of his laminate when he chose to shoot it whilst knowing there was still leaks he couldn't find...

 

I painted a stripe on the foam with clean epoxy where the tape was going. My leak happened because when I joined the various panels I glued them together using epoxy with wood flour. That wood flour is porous as all get out. I had to pull my laminate and all the mediums and go back over it with an epoxy and microballons mix and that solved the problem.

I had one leak that I never could track down but I also believe that was for using wood flour.

The corecell itself is def air tight though.

 

I don't believe so... I've had it leak through when I pressure tested my fuel tanks... I had to use vacuum to draw resin through it and seal the porosity. There looks to be small areas of imperfections in the foam I received ... Your mileage may vary, but I can see the time invested in this is not worth the hassle, better to do it another way... Ie make flat panels and bend them or tape together, make a mold, or even simply wet lay it... I find infusion is only time effective when you can infuse both sides at once... It's also cost effective both sides at once, not so much one side at a time...