Ok guys, I’m ready to jump into the future. You all have me so inspired that I want to try out the whole vaccuum bag thing. Which is better to put over the EPS core, Core-cell or Divinycell?
Second thought I have is would it work to laminate a 2 oz skin over the EPS and then use contact cement to attach the second foam core? It seems this might speed up the whole process. If this worked, I could eliminate the vaccuum bag since the contact cement wouldn’t need it.
Corecell is a much tougher foam, but D-cell/Airex pvc’s are great too.
Corecell seems to have a lot coarser surface in the lower weight foams that generally get used 80 - 100kg/m3.
This means it uses a bit more resin when laminating than Dcell does
The bond between the glass and the Dcell is of critical importance to the sandwich structure, so make sure it is with epoxy.
If you wan to try the contact cement, get a polystyrene-safe one, prelaminate the glass onto the inner side of the skin, then attach the whole thing to the core.
Personally, I havn’t found this to be the best way to go… but it’s doable
If your doing a compsand, I wouldn’t look for a way to eliminate the vac-bag process. This is intregal to the process. Vac-bagging your outer skin to your core with epoxy helps to “fuse” the whole thing together making the skins, rails and core one solid piece. Also the vac bag process helps to distribute the epoxy between the skin and the core evenly, making for a much better, equal bond. I wouldn’t skip this step if I were you. But then again, I’m just a novice myself. Also, are you using a rocker table to acheive your rocker, or something else? I don’t know any other way to get rocker doing a compsand without vac-bagging the skins to the core over a rocker table of some sort. Well, other than the new Timberflex proceedure that Greg Loehr is promoting, which by the way is pretty sweet, IMHO. Anyway, just my $.02.
Mahalo,
J.D.
I’ve used both Core-cell and the new formular Divinycell. No difference in durability, but I think D-cell is slightly better. It’s more ductile and has smaller cell size. I used 3 mm 80 kg m3 but you could go denser without stiffening the board. The colour sucks though- apparantly all grades are now pink.
where would you procure this foam from…?
Fiberglass Hawaii in Ventura, California. I’m also looking at Pet foam from Nida Core http://nida-core.com They are having a special where thay send you a sample of the foam and a gallon of the NidaBond adhesive free. I guess at that price, it can’t hurt to play with.