Here's a couple of shots from yesterdays activities. Below is a shot of the dry fitting with the board and mould fully enclosed in the thick vinyl vac bag.Velcro is used to pull the two parts fo mould together tighly. I tried bending the board across the width to length wise to see if the gaps between the planks would open up. They stayed together well enough and I'm guessing if small gaps to open up they will be filled quicly with excess resin from top and bottom.
Here is a visual of the problem I mentioned yesterday about the lack of tight tolerances on the core mould due to me getting the rail width mismatched with the diameter of the router bit and so having to 'hack' it.
I decided to try to have a bit of fun with graphics rather than get to artistic at this stage. I've printed the images on tissue paper and am just working out the best way to add them. The options are to pre-cure a top sheet and put the graphics on the back. Only drama there again arises from mismatched rails.They were 4.5 mm this and the core material is 6mm. So, I've have to do a bit fo profiling on the core and there are a couple of compound curves there I'm worried will cause too much bridging. Alternative is just to use peel ply in the vacuuming and then lay the graphics on top and follow it with an coat of epoxy. The down side there is that it will require elbow grease to get a good finish.
I'd love to try the pre-cured but we'll have to wait and see if I'm up to the challenge.
Nice to see how it's coming along and a vinyl bag in action. You won't go back from vinyl:)
ReplyDeleteWill you use the sealer 4:1 epoxy first? If yes, it might change a color of your planks significantly, like much more dark wood.
Dean