Well that went really badly!

Set the cloth up dry, trimmed, cut and checked it would lay down without any wrinkles - wet down the surface and then applied the cloth. All went downhill from here! wrinkles appeared in areas that didnt before, and after 30mins of struggling for it to sit flat (without then lifting in the corners!) I gave up and pulled the lot off, I just have an epoxy painted pattern now - luckily it's salvageable! I can imagine it's very easy on something with light curvature, but my part has a lot of curves....

Any tips? I cannot possibly see how I can get cloth down nicely on the part! Maybe I needed to cut it into more sections?

Very disheartened with it all

James

Hi James,

• What weight cloth are you using - 163g 2/2 twill glass?
  
• Which resin - our Epoxy Coating Resin?
• What is the shape of your pattern - can you post a picture?

You're right that some relief cuts may well have been in order; there is no reason not to put some relief cuts into the scrim cloth otherwise, depending on the shape, it may well be difficult to get the cloth to stay sat down wrinkle free on the surface.

Get back to me with the above info and ideally some pics and I'll gladly point out what might have gone wrong because essentially if you're using a light glass and epoxy resin that should be a reliable way to scrim a foam pattern. I look forward to hearing back from you...

Matt

Matt Statham
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Sales

Hi Matt,

Thanks for the reply - I also tried a second cloth using the then tacky coat of epoxy to "glue" it down, it went much better but still ended up with imperfections, to be fair I couldn't pre cut a cloth to as good a shape as previously, so maybe the carefully trimmed/cut cloth I made first time round would have worked better....  Maybe I'm too concerned with covering every inch and corner perfectly - is the odd gap OK perhaps? I was just imagining hours of sanding! I was having also troubles in the indents for the headlight, with the cloth lifting in the corners

I'm using the 163g 2/2 twill glass, with epoxy coating resin, (5% glass bubbles, small amount of graphite)
I've PM'd you a picture of the pattern for shape reference...

James

Hi James,

Yes, I think what might be significant here is what you were expecting from this scrim cloth. When you're working on a soft pattern material like the low density foam then the expectation is that you're really just using the foam for the general shape and that your fine detail you will put into whatever you coat the pattern with. The glass cloth and first coat of resin are just there to add considerable stiffness to the shape, you'll then add another coat or resin (and microballoons probably) which will give you the surface into which you'll put all your effort (defining the detailed shape and getting a really smooth, flat finish.

For this reason, if you've got a bit of 'wobble' in the glass or even a few problems where it's not gone down exactly as you wanted then anything like this will soon be knocked off when you give the pattern a first flat (with a really coarse paper) before you apply the pattern coat. It sounds to me like you were expecting a more perfect finish at this stage which is why it came as a dissapointment; in fact it was probably fine and ready (once cured) for a good flat to knock it into shape and then a coat of resin/balloons ready to take it up to its fine finish.

I hope this helps, Matt

Matt Statham
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Sales

Thanks Matt, appreciate it - I'll wait for it to cure, then try again - will be intesting to see how strong the pattern is with just it's thick epoxy coat - it's pretty strong foam, I can stand on the pattern without damage...

The second try probably was good enough, I just was worried about losing accuracy and definition in the part, does anyone have any pictures of a scrimmed part to help guide my expectations?

James

Hi James,

We'll start filming a new video tutorial series in the next week or so which will start with a guide to pattern making in just the way that you've undertaken. I can't promise when the video will be completed but when it is it should give you a much better idea of the process and what it should look like at each step.

-- Matt

Matt Statham
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Sales

Brilliant, look forward to it!

The resin coating has actually left a pretty good hard surface -

To produce the final finish, I've heard you use 2k filler primer, but although I have spray facilities I don't have the airfed mask etc to make 2k safe, can you recommend any other solutions?

James

Hi James,

Providing you can work in a well ventilated area and you have a half decent mask (doesn't need to be airfed) then spraying 2k paint shouldn't be a problem. If you really don't want to spray then you can just brush the filler/primer on if you want - it will leave you with a more uneven surface which will require more flatting but the end result should be the same.

-- Matt

Matt Statham
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Sales