You star Sev! Well was gonna do the job today as the resin has turned up but going to delay until I can get the perforated sheets Cheers Pablo
no worries, oh you might find this helpful: A guide to vacuum bagging - YouTube It's a bit dry but it should hopefully make all you've read make sense, the only thing you'll do differently is put the mould in the duvet bag rather than tape the edges. Howver the flange on your mould will allow you to do it like the guy in the video. Oh and stay away from resin infusion - it's proper shit!
Right me duvet bag is about 1.5 times bigger - check! Ordered some perforated, peel ply,breather sheets - check! Gonna be threaders if it doesn't turn out as a usable item
nice! right - when you do this, make sure the valve is on the other side of the mould - otherwise you'll get a really nice valve shaped imprint on your part, oh and if any resin gets round it it'll fly straight into your vacuum cleaner, most uncool! now move the edge seams of the bag to the edge seams of the mould as much as you can, and try to form the bag around the mould as faithfully as possible, this is what you're going to try and emulate when you vac it down. In fact, I'd give it a go now, just practice getting the bag in position, and you'll see that by vacing it down slowly in stages you can control it. so your layers in total should go something like this...
Howdo! Well got me resin, vacuum bag, vacuum, peel ply,perforated ply.....but no breather Easy Composites mucked up the order and sent me something else instead of the breather. Another day to wait.....bugger! Anyway below is me poor Mk1 failure :frown: Dull appearance is due to me starting to flatten back the finish, until the vent hole appeared! Then thought I would try again.
pablo, looking at your mould, I'd template the holes separately, and cut them out. You're not going to get a piece of material to drape comfortably in there and span it as well. If they're to be trimmed out, then just cut a disc and plonk it in. the main ply can then go over the whole body of your mould and just have slits in in to relieve it in that area (bit like one of them cats arse teatowel holders), so that when its all vacced down, you won't get bridging and loads of resin pockets and air pockets. for example...
Okay I've done me cloth in different sections as to overlap, so from your diagram should I cut slits in the cloth and then just place a circular piece over the top? Again cheers for the advice Sev.
Re-read and think it makes sense to meeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! And that my Lord is why we know the World to be Banana shaped!!!
bang on pablo that way it lets you bag it up a lot easier as well. so, each hole gets a disc of cloth inside it, then your main ply falls into it easily as you have cut slits into the cloth to allow it to drape over the edge, and a disc over the top to reinforce it. that way when it vacuums down the cloth has the chance to move, and you get the opportunity to push it into position easier as well. Its well worth having a go at dry bagging just to practice before the main event so to speak
Howdo!! Well laid up the airbox last night - couldn't hold the vacuum on the bag (Which I had tested before) Sooooo mad rush to find another, unfortunately this had moved some of the fibre - on the plus side it's on the inside and doesn't make any difference. So I was like a kid at Xmas, didn't sleep!!!! Then had a bit of a struggle getting the bugger out the mould. Overall very happy with the way it turned out As it was my first attempt, strong light and 100% integrity. Need to flat it back a little and lacquer....which is my next questions best lacquer to use and how to get a good finish??? Also need to finish off the TB holes, fit rivets.
top job pablo ma boy!!! don't worry about it not holding full vac, as the most important thing was that it consolidated all the plies (squashed it down and got the air out). This is good work and you can see the difference in weight between a vacuumed and un vacuumed component, but also in the surface finish. In the past I've worked on jobs where the requirement was a partial vacuum so don't frett. for what you're after boy done good! The only reason you had trouble getting it out of the mould is because you probably didn't have draft on the mould, which I'll cover in another lesson Now from your photos you can see all those things which didn't make much sense in writing. The corner at the front and the crease in the middle have 'bridged', which is where the material hasn't been properly in the radius. As you can see, it can happen on very shallow surfaces as well. not to worry as next time you'll look out for this and won't fall foul of it. You have two ways to get rid of this, you can either flat it back to the cloth in those areas, which will cause a bit of wobbliness, or what I would do is mix up a small amount of resin and keep an eye on it but wait till its the conistency of thock cold honey. trowel some of this into the holes and where the resin is missing - even on inlet hole edges if you need to and let it go off. Once your resin filler has gone off, you can sand it back but not have to sand back into the cloth. which will mean that the finish will be consistent Finishing: For rough sanding and shaping 240 - 400 grit. For tidying the surface - (resin filler and stuff) you can go for 6 - 800 If you're going to prep for spray, then 6 - 800 and then any laquer will do from halfords. Automotive laquer is good for about 80 degrees and won't blister till about 100 - 120, but in reality you should be fine. For uber bling you can do the following: laquer your part (6-800 grit prep, solvent clean - brake cleaner etc. - 2 coats of laquer - ohhh shiny shiny!, dont worry about runs at this point when dry - dust coat it. Can of matt black spray DUSTED over the top, like vesuvius has farted on it! Using 2000 grit, sand the part (with a block - not your paws) - the dust coat will show you where the low spots are. When you've sanded all the dust coat off, your surface is flat Polish with polishing compound - then finishing compound and wax. You can use autoglym or t-cut as substitutes. its all elbow grease unless you got a mop, but its worth it. And as for wax- mirrorglaze is your friend! I did my fairings with it and yes six coats took me a whole weekend but ohhhh lawwdy! As for fittings, I have rivnuts (clinch inserts) and anchor nuts, so if you need any just ask Thats how I finished these off:
Howdo! Well finished me airbox, could & should have spent more time on the finish but not to bad i suppose (Can always revisit later).
