bubbles in infusion edges... mould involved?


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GEFF
GEFF
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Hello there and thank you for your attention
English is not my main language so I apologise if my explanations are not as accurate as it should be.
I did my first mould and infusion since 10 years and it resulted as a disaster. I hope I can find help/solution and my experience could help other people.

I did the mould of a little tray with green tooling epoxy gelcoat and epoxy moulding paste on a glass. I used filling wax to fill the gap between the edges and the glass as you can see below:

So I did the mould, did my first infusion and had this as a result:


I forgot to take a picture but I had a looooot of bubbles  visibles behind the vacuum bag.
I did the infusion as this: [ -- Dry Reinforcement -- ] / Peel Ply / R100-MP22 Perforated Release Film / FM105 EasyFlow Infusion Mesh / Vacuum Bagging Film
I can see too there is a difference of thickness 



Perhaps I'm wrong but I think the problem comes from me doing too sharpen angles with the wax. I think it results with air traps.


What do you think guys? Am I right? Don't hesitate if you have any other clue to solve my problem, I wouldn't want to influence you Wink

If yes, I was thinking about putting back in place the original tray (to protect the mould) and sand the gel coat where there was wax to flat this and to have this sharpen angles rounded.
I think it's possible to had the same gelcoat if I go too far or if I need to had a gap filled, can you please confirm?

Thank you mates, I have my other mould (unimould) done with the same way so I don't dare to do the infusion if it's for the same result
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Hanaldo
Hanaldo
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So what happened there is you still had bridging, but because you used spray adhesive the fibres were held against the mould surface and the resin has filled the gaps between the layers without the surface defects. That would indicate to me that your reinforcement layup was better, but your consumables layup had bridging in it still. So I would suggest cutting your infusion mesh at these radiuses where you have issues so that it can move around when you pull a vacuum.

I also feel like spray adhesive can hinder you with simple layups like this, because it doesn't allow anything to move around. You've got a better result here, so it may be worth trying again, but you also have the problem of it affecting your surface finish. So for me, I wouldn't use spray adhesive and just position everything loosely in the mould. Then when you pull a vacuum, draw the bag down until it is loosely against the layup and you can slide it around easily, and use this to slide the material on the flanges inwards towards the tray, and then firmly press it down into those corners. Use a blunt tool if it helps, just be careful not to damage the bagging film. This can take a lot of effort, like putting your whole bodyweight into pressing the material into the corners. It can be a workout, but on something this small it shouldn't be too hard. When you have done all the corners, pull a little more vacuum and repeat the process. Do this several times until you reach full vacuum, by which stage you should be able to put your whole bodyweight on the material in those corners and it should feel as solid as if you were pressing directly on the mould surface (because in essence you are). If you feel any 'sponginess' or can see the material move at all as you press on it then you still have bridging any you need to release the vacuum a little bit and keep repeating the process.

Easy Composites demonstrate the technique in this video at around 8 minutes in (whole thing is a useful watch if you haven't already):





The only thing I would do differently here is they used tape to hold things in place on the flanges, which I don't recommend. It does the same as using spray adhesive and can prevent you moving stuff around as much as you need to. Better to have everything loose and be able to slide things around easily.
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