Hi there!

I need to build a CF part wich will go in a high temp environement (inside an engine bay)

as i need the part to have a nice glossy finish, can i use the epoxy clear gel coat before vacuum infusion?

And if so, is the gel coat need to full cure, or tacky when i build the reinforcement frame before start infusion?

Kind regards,

Seb.

Hi Seb,

The fact that you want a high temperature tollerance is what complicates this scenario. We have a couple of options for gel coating epoxy infused parts, the first is our CLear Epoxy Gel Coat (which has an HDT - Heat Distortion Temperature - of 115C) the second would be our epoxy compatible polyester gel coat (with a lower HDT at around 85C).

The usual dissadvantage to the clear epoxy gel coat is that it doesn't offer a very good level of UV protection to the parts underneath won't be a problem in your case because you're in an engine-bay away from the light. The clear epoxy gel coat is also a very hard gelcoat and can be too brittle sometimes for parts that are under a lot of stress or flex but again I don't see this being a problem in your application so I think this product would be a good choice if you don't expect the engine bay temperature to exceed 115C. If you do go with this product then make sure you apply it thinly - it will loose its clarity if applied too thick - you only need around 0.2-0.3mm (easily achieved with a light brush application).

If you decide you need higher temperarure tollerance than 115C (in which case you need to also make sure you're using a special High Temperature Epoxy Resin for the part too) then I think your only option will be to make the part first, using a high temperature resin, and then clear-coat it using a special high temperature clear coat/lacquer (which we don't sell but you should be able to source from a professional paint supplier).

I hope this helps.

Best regards, Matt

Matt Statham
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Sales