MarkMK (10/04/2016)
Hi there
Putting a resin break of an inch or more in your infusion mesh before the vacuum line will help ensure the part's fully infused and it will naturally slow things down prior to clamping off
If your part appears sufficiently wetted out by the time the resin reaches the vacuum line then it should be safe to clamp, followed by the feed line. However, if you're working on a fairly big mould and there's still some of the waste fabric around the perimeters of the mould still to infuse, I'd leave the feed line open until it looks like the resin has reached everywhere.
I have experienced some resin starvation on the part itself when the resin has struggled to wet-out the very edges of the material that overlap onto the flange, so preferable to see a little resin hit the catch pot unless all the fabric in the mould has infused.
Yes using a strip of just peelply as a brake is important. If you clamp off the resin first and then the vacuum you often get pinholes near the vacuum side of your part so you should clamp off the vacuum side and wait for more resin to come in and equalize your part. 10 seconds or so. That is my method.I have a 2 gallon catch pot and often I infuse once I have a full vacuum without the pump even connected to the sealed catchpot. The reserve vacuum in the catchpot is enough and doesn't even drop throughout the infusion.
Fred