Super 7 Mirrors


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I've been looking to make a few bits for my mates sevens, but with work and not having the correct materials to hand its taken until now.

After the issues I had with my first mould (my mistake due to part undercuts) I borrowed my friends machined ali mould, it needed a good bit of prepping as it still had a lot machining marks due to the depth of cuts, but after a 400grit wet and dry start all the way up to metal polish, this was the end result.

http://www.talkcomposites.com/Uploads/Images/deda9019-2250-4671-bc5e-c76d.jpg




I tried getting the tool into my laboratory oven and it will fit but is very tight, and i would still need to run the vac lines and make sure the bag isn't damaged, so I took the chance on trying a bit of wet lay but using a vac bag to give better consolidation and get a bit of the resin out of the laminate.

I have a background in laminating, but with prepregs in the aerospace and Motorsport business. I had forgotten how much I hate wet lay, its messy, the fabric doesn't stay in place and its just generally a nuisance, especially with a short pot life of 40mins with the resin Sad

The resin was starting to go off as i was laying the last ply, I used a 240gsm 2x2 Twill for plies 1 and 3 and 310gsm NCF ±45° to bulk it up, the NCF doesn't drape into such deep pockets very well so i had to dart it and cut into stripes, but here's a photo of it all in the vac bag.

http://www.talkcomposites.com/Uploads/Images/6d838794-a3a2-4af2-a9f1-6afd.jpg


And what was the result you ask? Well I didn't use as much release film as I should have as I was trying to save it, so some of the breather caught to the resin but no big issue.

http://www.talkcomposites.com/Uploads/Images/98e42241-b726-4597-b09c-303f.jpg

http://www.talkcomposites.com/Uploads/Images/af74f522-46a5-4df4-8ffe-633b.jpg


There were a couple of dry spots and a few pinholes, but the parts are for a race car so I will just give them a quick flood coat of 2k lacquer.

I was thinking of laying the dry fabric plies on some released glass or release film and impregnating them with resin before laminating them into the tool? Would this be a better way of doing it? as trying to wet out the plies in the tool was a real pain even though I used loads of resin and stippled them with a brush.

http://www.talkcomposites.com/Uploads/Images/102f5693-b6e1-4e1f-87fc-b15a.jpg


After a bit of trimming and sanding the parts looked good, I cant recommenced the perma grit tools enough!! the little disc cutter on a dremel was awesome and the sanding blocks make short work of sanding back to the trim lines, wish I had a set of them a few years ago!

For a first quick shot using wet lay and a vac bag, using non-perf release and heavy breather the results aren't bad, the surface finish is of course good as its a polished ali tool. But I need to address the dry spots in the first ply.

Any recommendations on what you would do, and yes I know infusion is the next way or cut the tool in half so I can use prepregs Smile

http://www.talkcomposites.com/Uploads/Images/b11b25f8-272a-46ee-8030-3af0.jpg
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