In the past, for small to medium sized piece, I have used a resin tray to wet out 1708 biaxial cloth.  Often with pieces bigger than the tray, I'd soak 1/2 of it in the tray, then fold the piece over so the other half wets out from the first half.  (like 'booking' of pre-pasted wallpaper).

I am currently working with some larger pieces ( 8 ft. x 2 ft.) and have been trying to pre-soak the resin in by laying the cloth out on a table, but it is hard to get the resin spread evenly over the piece, given its size.  FWIW, I like to pre-soak stitched cloth before laying in place, so much of the air is driven out of the cloth ahead of time.

It seems that the 1708 cloth is fairly dense and tougher to saturate than other cloths.  Any tips/tricks for working with larger pieces. ??? 

Working with VE resin if that matters.

Lay visqueen on your table. Put your cloth on it. Wet out the cloth the best you can. Then add another layer of visqueen on top. Use a squeegee on top of the visqueen to move the resin to areas that are dry. Boat builders use this method all the time.

This also makes transferring the cloth to you mold much easier. Just peel the top layer I’ve visqueen off and move it over to your mold using the bottom layer.

Jason

Visqueen . . .  That's British for polyethylene sheeting (right?)

Sounds like a good idea.  I have a fair amount of 'visqueen' on hand.  I wonder if I could/should use a rolling pin (or something similar) instead of a squeegee ?

You can for sure! Also helps with pushing out excess resin as well. This is an old school tried and true method for dealing with biax.

Visqueen is the brand name for Poly here in the US.



Jason