I posted in the general section but figured its better here.

I've come across spread tow cloth in canoes and it looks awesome!  I fancy making a hard top for my car with it (purely because it looks good!!) but I'd obviously need to be careful with the weave pattern.  Has anyone got any experience with it in terms of how it drapes and how easy the weave is disturbed?  I've used 200g twill weave dry and found it moves if you're not careful.  I dont want to mess this up if I can help it.

Hi FLD,

The spread-tow also needs to be handled with care in order to keep it in good alignment. Unless you're working with a completely flat surface (which the hard-top for your car will no be) then I would stear clear of the 25mm spread tow and, to be honest, probably the 15mm 2/2 twill weave spread tow. Both of these are too loose to work with on moulded/contoured surfaces if you're using them for cosmetic reasons rather than purely structural. The 15mm plain weave spread tow is more like a fabric you can use on a contoured surface - not a really complex one but some steady curves should be fine. The tows themselves are well bound together though and so you can individualy move them to ensure they're aligned as you want them to be, particularly whilst they're dry.

I hope this helps but if you're in any doubt, grab one of our reinforcement sample packs which include all of the spread-tow fabrics so you can have a feel of them before committing to the whole job.

I hope this helps,

All the best, Matt

Matt Statham
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Sales

Sounds like they're better suited to being used as prepreg for anything other than slight curves.  Any plans of carrying any of these reinforcements in low temp resin systems?

Thanks

Andy

Hi Andy,

They are definately well suited to being pre-pregs, especially if you want to use them on fully moulded parts. I don't think we'll be looking to pre-preg them at this stage simply because they're quite specialist and in pre-pregs we like to keep a high turnover of material (so that it's always fresh) and I suspect the spread-tow pre-preg wouldn't move as quick as we'd want it to.

--Matt

Matt Statham
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Sales

Thansk for getting back so promptly with good info

I have a random idea around the 25mm spread tow.  I'm a vac bagger (sorry, I know infusion is favoured here!!).  If I were to wet out the 25mm cloth with resin on a piece of release film and then transfer it would this help keep it straight or should I deffinitely stick with the 15mm? 

If it helps its a VX220 hard top.

Hi FLD,

You might find this helps, you might not. Pre-wetting the material with a wet resin is not going to make it behave like a pre-preg, the only way you can do that (really) is to wet it out with a very high viscosity resin and then work in a very cool environment which for a number of reasons I don't think you'll want to do. I suspect (although I don't know) that wetting it on a flat surface and then transferring it will prove to be more trouble than it's worth but you never know. My advice; stick with the 15mm but if you try the 25mm in this way then let us know how you get on!

All the best, Matt

Matt Statham
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Sales

Thansk for the advice.  I really appreciate an honest opinion. :thumbsup:

Hello composite's staff

Hi Bronny,

Well, this is quite a simple one to answer! - The 1m cloth is 1m wide and can be supplied as long as you want so when working out if it's large enough you simply have to measure your part and see if that measurement is greater than 1m in its smallest dimension.... i.e. if your bonnet is 1.2m x 1.6m then a 1m wide cloth won't do it but a 1.25m wide cloth will. If it's 1.5m x 2m then you're going to need a 1.5m wide cloth.

I hope that makes sense. I don't know the exact measurements of your bonnet or boot but I would hazard a guess that you'll need the 1.5m wide cloth for your bonnet and I'm not sure about your boot.

All the best, Matt

Matt Statham
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Sales