For my first parts I've infused 2 partial door cards for a rally car and on both I had the issue that the resin reached the vacuum line before the whole part had wetted out - in fact on one I had to reposition the vacuum connector on the fly to encourage resin to flow onto the dry patch.  Looks like they have both been salvaged but some pointers on how to make this smoother would really help.

Mould is steel coated with easylease, GC50 gelcoat, 2 layers 295gsm CF, peelply, infusion mesh, bagging film.
The part is 600mm base x 400mm high on one side, 170mm on other with a 75mm flange on the short vertical and sloped top side (rectangle with triangle on top).
I'm using resin quantities as per the resin calc guide (accounting for the mesh and material), the resin entry is one end of the part, the vacuum connector at the other end (almost 600mm separation).
On the first part I located the vacuum connector on the flange - the resin ran round the 2 flanged sides but had only wetted out 2/3 of the main panel.
So for #2 I removed some of the infusion mesh on the flat panel and put the vacuum connector at the far side of the flat panel - this time the flange had a triangle about 150x70 where the resin didn't make it to until I relocated the vacuum connector and pulled resin in that direction.

The next part is a bonnet - I'm thinking 2 vacuum points in corners might be prudent given experience so far...

Thoughts?
Thanks in advance
Stuart

Well some pics on how you draw the resin through would help diagnose but here's my guess.

 

#1. are you using this stuff in your bag along the resin side of your mold?





 

Also for your air side are you putting 2 layers of the flow mesh up and down the whole side of the mould?





If Brute Force Isn''''t working your not using enough...

I think you have the answer there as its No and No!
The flow out from the air side was across the whole piece but a 2nd layer would probably help and deffo I can see spiral wrap getting the resin more widely distributed.
Thanks for the pointers - lots to learn but much easier with friendly advice like this!

Stuart

Good spot Carbon Tuner!

Stuart, if you're not using resin infusion spiral then you will certainly get the result you described. The resin infusion connector on the resin side is really just a conduit to put resin into the spiral; with no spiral there you'll just have a single, small resin input which will then 'radiate out' effectively guaranteeing that the resin will reach the vacuum line before it gets to the outermost points of the mould. Trying to move connectors 'on the fly' is something we've all been forced to do at some point but it's an absolute last resort and very rarely will you get away without some negative impact.

Anyway, I hope we've got you back on track this time

Matt

Matt Statham
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Sales