Fiberglass Mold or Carbon Fiber Mold

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Fiberglass Mold or Carbon Fiber Mold

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Tanner seef Greenwood	Tanner seef Greenwood posted 5 Years Ago HOT Topic Details
Group: Forum Members Posts: 6, Visits: 151	Hey everyone I've coming looking for some advice, after searching and reading for countless hours I sill can't seem to find a clear answer to my question. That being, is a CF mold necessary for making multiple CF parts and if so would you recommend a high temperature laminating resin or would a simple laminating resin work just fine for mold construction. I'm only confused due to the fact that from what I've read and seen. Many people seem to be having great success from just ordinary polyester and fiberglass molds when it comes to making CF parts, but it looks like they've only had to make 1 or 2 parts from the mold. Would it be worth my time to spend the extra money and get the CF mold materials if i was trying to make around 5+ parts from a mold? any advice would be greatly appreciated! Also would epoxy surface coat work better in this case as well? other then a gel coat?
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Hojo	Hojo posted 5 Years Ago HOT Post Details
Group: Forum Members Posts: 31, Visits: 957	+x TannerGreenwood - 11/7/2019 12:01:50 AM Hey everyone I've coming looking for some advice, after searching and reading for countless hours I sill can't seem to find a clear answer to my question. That being, is a CF mold necessary for making multiple CF parts and if so would you recommend a high temperature laminating resin or would a simple laminating resin work just fine for mold construction. I'm only confused due to the fact that from what I've read and seen. Many people seem to be having great success from just ordinary polyester and fiberglass molds when it comes to making CF parts, but it looks like they've only had to make 1 or 2 parts from the mold. Would it be worth my time to spend the extra money and get the CF mold materials if i was trying to make around 5+ parts from a mold? any advice would be greatly appreciated! Also would epoxy surface coat work better in this case as well? other then a gel coat? Basically, if you plan to cure at high temperatures, and need good geometrical tolerance then you want carbon epoxy tooling. If you plan to infuse and cure at low temp fiberglass moulds could work just fine for you. Carbon moulds have a very low CTE, and you typically want your CTE of mould to match your part. So if you were making a fiberglass part at high temps you would likely have a fiberglass epoxy tool.
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Tanner seef Greenwood	Tanner seef Greenwood posted 5 Years Ago HOT Post Details
Group: Forum Members Posts: 6, Visits: 151	+x Hojo - 11/7/2019 1:45:31 AM +x TannerGreenwood - 11/7/2019 12:01:50 AM Hey everyone I've coming looking for some advice, after searching and reading for countless hours I sill can't seem to find a clear answer to my question. That being, is a CF mold necessary for making multiple CF parts and if so would you recommend a high temperature laminating resin or would a simple laminating resin work just fine for mold construction. I'm only confused due to the fact that from what I've read and seen. Many people seem to be having great success from just ordinary polyester and fiberglass molds when it comes to making CF parts, but it looks like they've only had to make 1 or 2 parts from the mold. Would it be worth my time to spend the extra money and get the CF mold materials if i was trying to make around 5+ parts from a mold? any advice would be greatly appreciated! Also would epoxy surface coat work better in this case as well? other then a gel coat? Basically, if you plan to cure at high temperatures, and need good geometrical tolerance then you want carbon epoxy tooling. If you plan to infuse and cure at low temp fiberglass moulds could work just fine for you. Carbon moulds have a very low CTE, and you typically want your CTE of mould to match your part. So if you were making a fiberglass part at high temps you would likely have a fiberglass epoxy tool. Thank you so much for replying! So in the case of making a multi use mold for carbon fiber parts, using carbon fiber for the mold support wouldn't necessarily be need? and I would be okay with using an epoxy, fiberglass tooling? sorry I'm still new to composites Also would you recommend using an Epoxy Surface Coat or a Tooling Gel Coat? (Polyester unfortunately living in Canada I can't get Uni-mold) Edited 5 Years Ago by TannerGreenwood
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Hojo	Hojo posted 5 Years Ago HOT Post Details
Group: Forum Members Posts: 31, Visits: 957	if you are not heating up it should be just fine.
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Ken Olson	Ken Olson posted 5 Years Ago Post Details
Group: Forum Members Posts: 8, Visits: 41	I've made about 14 parts from my polyester and fiberglass molds. They are starting to look a little rough around the edges but work just fine. I am doing room temp vacuum infusion with carbon fiber parts. No issues.
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