Hello,

I am carbon fiber wrapping a slice of an RC plane wing for testing using vacuum bagging. After the layup, the easy release fabric and the breather material are both epoxy hardened and STUCK to the part. I recognize this part is scrapped, but what would you estimate the problem to be? It doesn't feel like too much epoxy, but what else could it be if it's soaking through and hardening everything. Should I try and really squeeze epoxy out before vacuum bagging? Or are the easy release and breather fabric just trash? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Simeon

I can't tell from the picture if you have a release film or peel ply or both under the breather - not sure what you mean by 'easy release fabric'.  Generally for wet layup it is a good idea to use three different layers - peel ply first right over the laminate and then a perforated release film over that, followed by the breather.  The release film should allow the breather to just pop off even if it is really thickly soaked with cured resin.  Your breather here looks fully saturated with resin so maybe go for a bit less resin next time - harder with small parts like this.  Ideally you should have a bunch of resin dots or spots in the breather from resin coming up through the holes in the release film but it should not fully soak the breather.  

In a pinch you can make perforated release film by poking holes in painter's plastic.  For this you want them every 10-20mm apart if they are about 1/2mm holes - from a thumbtack or something.  So lots of holes! 

Can you pull it off if you trim close to the part and try to grab the peel ply with pliers and pull?  If you don't use perforated release film it can sometimes require lots of pulling and can be a very tedious and frustrating process - but it should be possible.  If the part is just one ply of carbon over foam or something very light you may have trouble removing the peel ply without damaging the part.  

Its frustrating but there are few people who do composites stuff who haven't been where you are.  I once spent the better part of a week pulling off peel ply and breather from a large part with pliers - and have been fanatical about release film ever since.  Good luck!