Been given a brand new material to test which gives a perfect pin hole free finish....  I have to admit until now the best material has been VTF261 (Easypreg by another name) but the cost has driven me to use other materials. If you buy VTF direct you have to order 50sq/m as a minimum order so buying Easypreg is the only other alternative source for the material.. So at a reasonable quantity you are looking at just under £83 per meter to buy.. The material I have just tried will be cheaper and after testing it this week works every bit as well as VTF (easypreg).

I have a contract to make dive tank covers I had to use a material I was supplied which I knew would need to be lacquered. I tried the new material and was impressed with the results.. I have used another material and had parts 95% as good as VTF and perfectly acceptable to my usual customers as it is out of the mould. But this was flawless....

Once I have been given permission to let people know about it I will. But for now it is a material that is close to launch and not yet available.


Here are two covers I made. One with each material..

This one is a PRF RF464. This is fresh material which arrived this week...
 

This is the new material which arrived this week too.....


Sorry the photos are not the best as these are just from my phone's camera.... 



No pin holes at all.... The down side is the customers supplied mould is now the weak link for a great part... He is now having a new mould made which will be finished to a proper gloss and any imperfections will be removed..

Hi Tha Pop..
Sadly I have never done infusion. I have done wet lay in a vacuum bag and pre-preg. For me pre-preg is the most consistent and cost effective as rarely have any parts that could be seen as genuine scrap parts. Material costs are higher but not so high it makes the parts very expensive to make.. Also I dont need mesh or tubes or MTI hose and there is no excess resin which could bring up the cost of making parts close to pre-preg and lay up time is reduced. But you do need an oven. I made mine from MDF, chinese fan heater and a PID controller. It works perfectly and cost about £150 to build and is 1.2 meters wide x1.2 meters deep and 1m high.

I have been asked to take over a job from a company who are making some small personal water craft. They infuse them and it takes them just over a week to make them from start to finish. In pre-preg the same job would take me 3 days.  So I could make two in the same time it takes them to make one so would in the end be more profitable and even someone making parts for personal use or as a hobby is quicker to do.  I do think understanding wet lay is quite important and if you use polyester resins cheap and fast to do. I think it has helped me and I have gone from doing it as a hobby for my own bike to now doing it as a business full time and making parts for other people. If I had to do infusion yes it would save some money but the extra time is takes to do would make up the difference and possibly mean in a week I actually make less money.

I can make a complete motorcycle fairing in 2 days where doing infusion I would think it would be almost double that. Turning moulds round is minutes and the covers I have done here I do one a day which is over a £1000 order in 5 days. Each one only takes up half a day through to putting them into the oven. If I had two mould and the customer wanted 10 per week I would do that easily... I dont think I could say the same for infusion and I would still expect some rate of scrappage due to air entrapment in the weave or some minor surface blemish ect.. As long as I follow my methodology and cure them accurately I dont seem to have an issue. I had two in this first batch with problems. One was pinholes due to the new oven set up being out and one due to spider cracks in the original mould the customer sent....