Can i use coremat in a laminate press? I press skateboards with a layers of wood, grp and carbon. I usually press them to around 7 tonnes to get good lamination and shape. If i add coremat into the mix will it just squish down to nothing ? Im thinking of using 1.5mm but would i be better of to use 3mm and expect to squish it down to 1.5mm in the press?....

Hi Ben,
It will crush down to next to nothing, why are you thinking of introducing this into the deck?

chris

well. this deck was a learning curve. Yes, it compressed down to next to nothing. I had to throw the whole thing away anyway because i mixed up some of the resin wrong and half the deck didnt glue doh.. I introduced some coremat to try to save some weight as i wanted to add some 600 gsm glass to a previous design to strengthen it but not add weight. In the end the coremat soaks up so much resin theres very little weight advantage and as it does not retain its thickness the deck would certainly have been considerably  less rigid.  I doubt ill try it but i wonder if the soric would work better ? Now ive read all the info it seem that soric will retain its thickness.

by reading what you are tyring to do you should be better with some PVC core or maybe aluminium honeycomb if you want to add rigidity without weight...but have now idea how it will react on the things you are making in use...you should do some testing

Matthieu Libeert
Founder MAT2 Composites X Sports
website: www.mat2composites.com

im sure i will be mat. finding the amount of pressure cores can withstand without crushing would be a start.

as matthieu sugested, my first test would be pvc foam, that will hold up much better than core mat and soric

I'd be tending towards Gurit Corecell M80 structural foam, the thinnest is 3mm and is pretty conformable, it has high shear and impact strengths with a compressive strength of 148psi so basically thats around 10 bar, higher than most autoclaves would use so in your press it should work fine. If you need a contact for it then give me a PM, I'm sure if you ask them nicely they will send a small sample out.

When using cores I would be concerned about punching shear though the base of the deck from an off or grind and you would have to create local solid (non core) sections where the trucks mount - this can be done a varity of ways but sort out which (if any) core to use first.