Material choice for stepped mandrels and shrink tape questions

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gsport	gsport posted 10 Years Ago HOT Topic Details
Group: Forum Members Posts: 4, Visits: 39	Apologies if this is the wrong forum or has been discussed many times before, couldn't find anything definitive using search. I am planning on making some CF bearing housings by hand layup over turned stepped mandrels which I will make. I can make these mandrels out of Aluminium or a range of plastics (Acetal, Nylon, PP, HDPE, etc) is there a significant difference in how easily they will release from the epoxy (They will have zero draft in places due to being bearing seats and I was going to use PVA as a release but open to suggestions)? Any materials that I should specifically avoid due to reaction with epoxy? I was going to consolidate by wrapping in heat shrink tape and/or then over vacuum bagging, but there seems to be some horror stories about the heat shrink tape with people over heating and boiling the epoxy?!? How hard is it to shrink the tape well? (using a hot air gun with temperature control) Is it better to keep the temperature down and go slow, or give it a quick blast of high temp air to try to keep the epoxy cool more like a baked alaska? Any hard won advice much appreciated. George
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