Infusion Plan

That's very nice looking! The suicide knob shows you mean business!

You do very precise work, if you keep doing this and manage to get the construction speed down, you will have a very high quality product.

That space being pressurized is my theory on why those type of deck plates always seem to leak. The boat sits in the sun and the spaces build up heat and pressure, the rubber seal rings become very flexible/malleable. Rain comes along and suddenly cools the deck creating a large vacuum in the sealed space and water puddled in the area of the plate gets sucked past the seal until the space cools down enough.

 

Thanks, I'l def get the time down, this was all about learning.

I think your right about the deck plates, I had an opportunity to play with them a bit including in the rain. I now have them barely dogged down so the pressure will release but hopefully not let any water in. This week though I will be adding a vent.

 

multi stacking panels for infusionj

Hi All - unfortunately multi stacking panels for infusion and panel making is not a new idea. Its been around for over 15-20 years to my knowledge. I did some sample panels for a company that was looking into doing flat panels over 20 years ago. But a good idea is always being rediscovered so it must be a good idea. In regard to perf film, there are several types, some of which are quite expensive. The cheapest ones are like bread bag film, very flimsy and sometimes can be a pain to strip (eg the cheap one from Gurit/SP) they break and stick in corners etc. The more expensive ones usually designed for prepreg strip very easily and do not tear or disintegrate.

Some clues, perf is designed to allow prepreg stacks to breath so they are not really designed to allow much resin flow. They range from 1% to 2% porosity which is not much. The term high flow is used in some literature for the 2% types. I usually get the hole size and pattern and calculate the porosity if its a product I'm not familiar with and pick the highest porosity. Some have more holes and smaller holes, some have big holes but less holes.

Its advantageous to have some in the shop to put under spiral, resin ports or bits you don't want to stick to the job and are a pain to remove even with peel ply. Cheers peter S

 

I've been overseas for 5 weeks you've come along nicely while I've been gone. Whats a suicide knob?

 

Hey Peter, good to see you back )

The more I think about it I think I am leaning more to molds, I just don't like to cut and glue and fair!!! Takes too much time, Im going to continue to work on infusing as much of the structure in one shot as possible which means it's the bag welding that I have to perfect!

Dropped the boat off in the keys and got it registered. Going to hang the motor this weekend and start installing all the controls etc … don't know what I am doing at all!! lol

 

I'm going to give the multi panel stack a try.Jorge when did you clamp off the feed on your last one?Any issues with sucking up a lot of resin on the vac end?

Peter,some call the knob on the steering wheel a suicide knob.

 

I would do it like this for several reasons.

1. Use infusion grid scored foam, it will ensure across panel flow to all panels in the stack and you will get a good finish on both sides of the panels as opposed to flow media which leaves a print on at least 1 side.
2. Calculate the resin requirement accurately before beginning, you won't know how far the fronts have progressed on the panels you can't see, so if you clamp early, you may have a dry spot in there somewhere which simply needed more time to fill.
3. You must use a resin brake regardless of whether it's center feed or perimeter feed. So the flow media or flow channels in the foam, need to be removed for a minimum distance of 50mm all around the vac outlet, I would rather use 75mm however. This allows slower panels to catch up to the faster ones so they all finish properly before the vacuum is blocked by resin at the end of the fill.
4. Have some form of vertical pathway common to all panels, such as a large hole in the foam cores if center feeding below where the feed inlet is, or simply a decent bridge in the bag around the perimeter with a spiral feed line in the bridged area, if perimeter fed. This will decouple the permeability problem of the perf film and ensure they all wet out at a similar speed. The perf film simply becomes a release agent so the panels can be seperated afterwards. Technically, it need not even be perforated, which would be my next trial as then a high gloss finish would be achievable on both sides of all panels if desired.

Failure to consider any of the above could likely result in problems....

 

I agree on everything ... though with my test with just two layers the resin shows no signs of stalling. I like the idea of as much feed line as possible plus I like to infuse inward.

Maybe I would use perf film and infusion flow on the vertical sides all the way around and widen the cuts a bit on the edge to ensure no blockage.

I also would fill the cuts and perts at the outlets to ensure a good resin break and I wouldn't be worried about making it a nice big one like 4 inches I have made them as big as 10" which is way more than you need.

I would stick with perf material separating the layers just for the vacuum sake and also add outlet holes through all panels. If it's just an eight foot panel you can use a single outlet hole in the center drilled through all panels as I did.

If you do it this way I think all you need is cut core because your feeding each side of each layer. I would do a test but I don't see why it wouldn't work

It's pretty easy to get really exact with your resin on the panels but I'd rather have extra and suck a little into the trap than not enough. I might not clamp the line in a case like this until the resin is just about to hit the outlet, say an inch away, that will probably suck a little in to your trap but not much. Also I have never infused with cut core so Im just guessing.

 

core will be 6mm foam,I'll have to drill the holes 20mm centers.3 layers so do I drill them stacked so all holes line up?For the break would it be just the top layer that I don't drill the holes?
Perimeter feed from the outside bottom center vac on top.
What about all the glass and peelply,can this hang over the edge or do they need to be cut exact to the foam?
Not sure on size of the foam for the test but to replicate what I'm after length will be 4 times the width. So maybe 1'x4'.

Thanks,

 

So if your going to drill the holes it's ok to stack them and drill all layers of foam except remember not to drill the 2-4" diameter area around your outlet for the resin break.

The holes are really small in the factory drilled foam, like 1/16 - 3/32, you might even be able to lay some release film between the layers and drill it at the same time so everything lines up. That should eliminate flow problems completely.

I wouldn't let the glass hang over at all. Peel ply is okay to hang over. Don't forget you will need the flow media on the bottom layer, that's the only one your feeding horizontally the others will get their resin vertically. The flow media should extend out far enough to wrap around the feed lines.

I think should work no problem. You can use two or more outlets if the length is too long compared to the width, 8'L to 4' width just makes it. I found using more than one outlet seems to work better but all my 8' panels I only used one outlet. Super easy to set up!

 

Thanks for the info,Groper may be you could exsplain this a little more.

4. Have some form of vertical pathway common to all panels, such as a large hole in the foam cores if center feeding below where the feed inlet is, or simply a decent bridge in the bag around the perimeter with a spiral feed line in the bridged area, if perimeter fed. This will decouple the permeability problem of the perf film and ensure they all wet out at a similar speed. The perf film simply becomes a release agent so the panels can be seperated afterwards. Technically, it need not even be perforated, which would be my next trial as then a high gloss finish would be achievable on both sides of all panels if desired.

 

He's talking about using cut core, wouldn't work with just perf core, the cuts take the place of the flow media.

 

Ok I see. Just to confirm I don't drill holes in all the core layers where the break is?

 

You need to ensure there is a pathway for vacuum to all panels. Ideally this should be a small hole directly under your vac outlet, which is surrounded by the resin brake. The resin brake area should still have perforations, just no flow media or resin channels if using cut core.

 

About 1 minute in I chose smaller pieces as this what I had and not such a loss if it doesn't work. Will see after it cures and god help I can get the layers apart haha