Laminating with a cabosil mix?

General Discussion
1

I’ve been experimenting with innegra 2 oz.  When my sample arrived in the mail I thought they made a mistake and sent me 6oz.  That’s how big the weave is, but  a ot looser.  Then I realized it’s feather light.

 

So I’ve been doing my samples and just read a quote by someone saying the bigger the weave the more the resin pools in the little voids.  So I had a thought - could I lam with an epoxy cabosil/q cell mix?  The innegra is kind of resin phobic to begin with.  It does not seem to saturate,.  So if it’s just a question of adhering and filling the voids maybe a lighter mix might be better?  

Thoughts?

2

You should vacuum bag it after lamination, cabosil will make the bonding even worse!

If you do not bag it, the lam will contain way to much resin.

 

Edit: you will probably need to wet out the blank first (with resin) and lay the fibres on the wetted surface.

3

I haven’t really understood how vac bagging a lam will make it lighter that a hand lam?  My intention is to squeegee as dry as possible my hand lams.  Are you actually sucking resin out of the bag when applying the vacuum???  If not, then the weight is the same.  Maybe distributed differently? More in the cloth less in the foam?  Yet you say to wet the foam first? 

4

When baggin a lam, you need to use peelply and a resin absorbing cloth.

 

Wetting the blank first is not nessecairy if you impregnate the cloth on a table before putting it on the blank.

 

So first you put the innegra on the blank, then peelply, then resin absorbing cloth and then you put it in the vac bag. This will press the lam on the blank and suck the too much resin in the cloth.

Afterwards you pull the peel ply from the lam and it’s done.

5

 

**As to weight specification you might need to be careful, some companies describe the weight as the weight of the cloth alone per as defined unit area;  A.N.Other companies may describe the weight as the weight of the cloth plus the weight of the recommended resin application per the as defined unit area.  Have fun.**

 

6

You can’t get the same ratio that bagging will acheive when you hand lam. The bagging will force all the extra resin through the cloth and out to the material you use to soak that up. It also forces the cloth or whatever you have down onto the blank and holds it there until the vacuum is turned off.

I think that in time you could get to the point where you can do a single pull and get a finished quality surface.

7

So peel ply and/or breather absorbs resin?  It then is a disposable, single use product?  I looked up some products at Fiberglasssupply.com.  Kind of expensive, especially if you were doing production (which I’m not).  Any pointers as to best products / least expensive?  I’m just a home builder an cannot buy rolls…

8

Both are reusable. Not sure how many times you can use it, but more than a few. The material that soaks up the resin that Bernie had kinda made it flaky and you could shake it out a little. It wasn’t like the material was all hard and soaked with dried resin. Probably using way too much resin if that happens.

The resin won’t stick to the other stuff with the tiny holes. That was green colored. The other was white and kinda looked like a felt.

Don’t know the costs, but Bernie doesn’t seem to think about that stuff.

9

Thanks for the info shark.  If it’s reusable I’m more apt to try it.  Do you know where bernie got his stuff?

10

I don’t really think peel ply is reusable, if you are doing clean work.  The point of peel ply is to soak up extra epoxy.  If it is saturated, the flakes from the last use will "crust " the latest application.

If your technique is good, simple .5 mil painters plastic, or shrink wrap will work, at almost no cost.