Talk Composites - The Forum for Advanced Composites

Dawing vacuum on my canoe mould

http://www.talkcomposites.com/Topic24120.aspx

By rmaddock - 10/21/2017 11:57:15 AM



Having been kept away from my canoe project by such trivialities as working in lieu for the workshop rent, I got back to trying to get a good vacuum on my mould this morning.

This is the first time that I've tried using the whole mould, having done a test on one end before now.

I'm nearly there. I've bought a Sealey ultrasonic leak detector to try out. The result is that it's great for finding the gratuitous leaks that you need the pump running to find but isn't sensitive enough to find the last few little leaks. Next week is the half term for my boys so I'm going to take their younger ears along once the storms have stopped blowing and see if they can hear the hiss.

So far, this is the vacuum drop over a five minute test with the pump off.



Not good enough yet :-(

I must make a canoe this week. I must!
By MarkMK - 10/25/2017 10:48:48 AM

It's not been mentioned, but also make sure that you're isolating the vacuum end of your set-up when performing the leak test to eliminate the catch-pot as a possible leak source (this is not uncommon).

Apologies if you are routinely clamping the vacuum line when beginning the leak test.