First infusion has porosity


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Roo2
Roo2
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Hello there,
I've just completed my first infused part. It's a shell for a home made metal detector coil. I'm generally happy with the result but would like to improve the surface finish on future parts.
The part is made with 2 layers of 200gsm fibreglass and a low viscosity epoxy that uses a very slow hardener. It took over 4 hours to start to gel in a warm environment. I'm using a pump that can get down to about -28" and  after I infused the resin it was turned off. No evidence of leaks where seen and the vacuum gauge needle didn't move for the entire cure duration.
If you look at the attached photo of the shell on the scales there are a few areas that appear to have porosity. Small holes between the fibre weave. Could that be caused by using hardener that is too slow and all the resin has been squeezed, drawn out of the very thin laminate? Or is it just evidence of tiny air leaks I couldn't see or measure?
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oekmont
oekmont
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If you do a corret degassing (proper chamber, full vacuum) you'll notice that even a crystal clear resin still degasses quite a lot of air. Even if you just degas your resin without stirring and without adding hardener, there will be air inside your resin. This is a physical effect, and absolutely unavoidable. Think of  the ocean: fishes ares able to get oxygen of of the water. And there is no visible air trapped.
This small amount of air is might not be the problem in a infusion, as there is a pressure gradient through your part. Only the resin at the resin front is at vacuum strong enough to pull air out of the resin. But if you clamp of the resin line to early, you'll end up with your whole part under allmost full vacuum. And as the resin does not flow anymore, the small amounts of degassed air have no where to go, but to stay in the cloth. There the small bubbles collect and form greater ones, typically at the small gaps between crossing fibres.
I am 100% sure that more resin/later clamp of will solve your problem, but will end up in a slightly heavier part.
Alternatively you could degas your resin at a higher vacuum, than the final pressure in your cavity, to ensure that there will be no degassing.
Hanaldo
Hanaldo
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Well water at a molecular level is a product of oxygen and hydrogen, so of course there will always be air in the ocean for fish to breathe - without the oxygen you wouldn't have water. It is possible to completely degass an epoxy - assuming of course that it is a 100% solids epoxy; solvents will outgass forever - it just generally takes quite a long time and in most cases takes up far too much of the workable pot-life. It is also mostly unnecessary, as once the resin has 'foamed' and then collapsed, there is only a small amount of air left in the resin. 

Roo, if you check out Easy Composites tutorial video on how to produce flat sheet, then they cover resin breaks quite well in the bit on infusion. I concur with oekmont and Warren that allowing in a bit of excess resin will solve your porosity issues. And in all honesty, that extra bit of weight will be absolutely minimal in your finished laminate - most of the resin will stay in the flow media instead of the laminate. I bet if you made a slightly resin rich part and compared the weight to your current part with porosity issues, they would be within a few grams of each other. 


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Roo2 - 8 Years Ago
oekmont - 8 Years Ago
Roo2 - 8 Years Ago
Warren (Staff) - 8 Years Ago
oekmont - 8 Years Ago
Hanaldo - 8 Years Ago
oekmont - 8 Years Ago
polaraligned - 8 Years Ago
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MarkMK - 8 Years Ago
oekmont - 8 Years Ago
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Roo2 - 8 Years Ago
oekmont - 8 Years Ago
Roo2 - 8 Years Ago
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