Hi Matt! Do you think vacuum infusion could be a way for building kiteboards? As I'm lucky enough to have an industrial vac pump in my shed this could be an option for me. This would be a good way to get rid of the air bubbles, but I'm not sure if both side of the board would suck enough epoxy.
With a foam core with drilled bleeding holes this could definitely work (I guess), but a wood core would probably block the resin reaching both sides.
Any thoughts on this?
Cheers, Vik
p.s.: Congratulations for your blog and your results so far, its very inspirational :)
Thanks!! I'm really enjoying it and so I'm really chuffed that people are enjoying the blog too.
Its a very good question about infusion and I have had the same question on my mind as you. I spoke to a friend whose builds maxi-yachts and he didn't that that the result on the underside would be very good. In his work then use it to make one skin of the boat, then put core material in and use infusion a second when the inner skin goes on.
You might have seen this video. Top looks good but underside? I can't help thinking that you would need to wet out the bottom layer in conventional vac bagging style to get a good finish.
Check this out. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1v9sFfufQc
This guys seems to know what he's doing but has a comment on the video sayign he does know how to have a voidless finish using this technique.
I did speak to a guy who makes carbon fibre paddles for a living and he had made one using RTM. However, he not only evacuated it with a vac pump but also pressured up the resin pots so that there was greater than one atmosphere pressure pulling it through. Bleeding holes would seem to make sense.
I wonder if putting a light coat of resin on the rocker table surface ( not enough to saturate it just) might assist with avoiding voids:)
If you've got access to an industrial vac pump then maybe just regular vac bagging might be a better option. I've haven't used vac infusion before but have read that its a lot less fault tolerant that vac bagging. Also, from what I can gather, vac infusion's main benefit is getting very low resin/fibre ratios and so havng stronger finished boards. However, with the baords I've made this resin /fibre ratio is only slightly larger than what they say in the data sheets (based on weighing it, so it may not be so uniform).
If you do, one tip I got from a guy who made a great looking board in NZ is to back the vacuum off to about 80% once you've done an initial evacuation otherwise the full vac from a good pump will leave the weave quite dry.
Really good video thanks for posting.
ReplyDeleteHere is something interesting.
playwithcarbon.com an aussie supplier has the exact same equipment for sale as they are using in the video.
Hi Matt! Do you think vacuum infusion could be a way for building kiteboards? As I'm lucky enough to have an industrial vac pump in my shed this could be an option for me.
ReplyDeleteThis would be a good way to get rid of the air bubbles, but I'm not sure if both side of the board would suck enough epoxy.
With a foam core with drilled bleeding holes this could definitely work (I guess), but a wood core would probably block the resin reaching both sides.
Any thoughts on this?
Cheers,
Vik
p.s.: Congratulations for your blog and your results so far, its very inspirational :)
Hi Vik
DeleteThanks!! I'm really enjoying it and so I'm really chuffed that people are enjoying the blog too.
Its a very good question about infusion and I have had the same question on my mind as you. I spoke to a friend whose builds maxi-yachts and he didn't that that the result on the underside would be very good. In his work then use it to make one skin of the boat, then put core material in and use infusion a second when the inner skin goes on.
You might have seen this video. Top looks good but underside? I can't help thinking that you would need to wet out the bottom layer in conventional vac bagging style to get a good finish.
Check this out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1v9sFfufQc
This guys seems to know what he's doing but has a comment on the video sayign he does know how to have a voidless finish using this technique.
I did speak to a guy who makes carbon fibre paddles for a living and he had made one using RTM. However, he not only evacuated it with a vac pump but also pressured up the resin pots so that there was greater than one atmosphere pressure pulling it through. Bleeding holes would seem to make sense.
I wonder if putting a light coat of resin on the rocker table surface ( not enough to saturate it just) might assist with avoiding voids:)
If you've got access to an industrial vac pump then maybe just regular vac bagging might be a better option. I've haven't used vac infusion before but have read that its a lot less fault tolerant that vac bagging. Also, from what I can gather, vac infusion's main benefit is getting very low resin/fibre ratios and so havng stronger finished boards. However, with the baords I've made this resin /fibre ratio is only slightly larger than what they say in the data sheets (based on weighing it, so it may not be so uniform).
If you do, one tip I got from a guy who made a great looking board in NZ is to back the vacuum off to about 80% once you've done an initial evacuation otherwise the full vac from a good pump will leave the weave quite dry.
Have you got a board project in mind??