I wonder if one side of the soric could be dyed or spray painted? Might inhibit resin flow requiring mesh to be used again, but it may be a solution.

Hi FLD,

The finished weight of the part was 3.25kg. The original steel one was 18kgs so we got a good weight saving. You could save more weight by dropping out the gelcoat and changing the core material to something with a lower uptake but Soric makes the process so simple that we do really like it and, as can be seen from the 3.25kg finished weight it can still allow some very light parts to be made. Warren's right about the single layer of 200g, it's touch-and-go whether you'll see the core. We didn't on this part but if you had a more curved shape then you would. That's the reason we're interested in a black Soric but we've spoken to Lantor about it and it's not something that will be a stock product for them and we'd need to buy many thousands of metres to get it made. I hope they do make it a stock product because I think it would be very useful so we'll keep talking to them!

All the best, Matt

Matt Statham
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Sales

Thanks for that.  I guess a lot of this comes from experience and I just need to keep at it.  I think I'll be watching a few more of your tutorials

if you are rough with the carbon or a few tows spread then with one layer over the foam it is possible to see the white soric.  If you are careful then you should be fine. The bonnet skin i made was one layer each side of a core and i didnt have any problems with the soric showing. 

Black soric is now in production and im sure if the demand was sufficient, then EC would stock it.

in terms of strength, my bonnet had 1 layer of 200gsm either side of a 3mm soric core for the skin and 3 layers of 200gsm for the frame.  it was so rigid it was hard to flex at all. 

A lot of it depends on the shape. a nicely curved bonnet or a bonnet with a nicely profiled or deep frame will be perfectly rigid with much less layers of fabric than a perfectly flat bonnet with minimal frame.

Having seen an infusion demo years ago and watching as the resin nicely skirted around the sides leaving a dry patch in the centre I've always dismissed it and layed up by hand using release film and breather to take out the excess resin.  Thought I'd watch this as It seems to give a slightly better finish.  I was surprised at the outer skin being just 1x200g each side.  I guess I over engineer my parts (they are mega rigid) as I'd have at least 2x200 and I'd be wary of it!  Where there are particularly dificult compound shapes is there a risk with a single layer like this spreading the tows and showing the core material?

I'm also interested in the final weight of this project.

thanks

Hi,

The cutting tool really is a Dremel - we've had it years, it's amazing and you can get all of the replacement parts for it. For a long time they stopped making it (it's from the Professional series) but the good news is that it looks like they've started making it again. I haven't used one of the new ones but if it's as good as the old one then it would make a great investment. They're calling it Fortiflex this time:
http://www.dremeleurope.com/gb/en/ocs/category/6135/fortiflex%E2%84%A2-system/

The extractor arm is a Plymovent 'Flex'. Maybe we should look into stocking both of these as we get plenty of enquiries and they're not that easy to pick up. A word of warning though, they're both top-end professional kit, not hobby tools and so they're not cheap (although worth every penny):

http://www.plymovent.co.uk/uk/products/extraction_arms/plastic_tube_arms/flex.aspx

--Matt

Matt Statham
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Sales

Do you have anymore details on the extraction system and also the cutting tool as I am pretty sure it's not dremel man thanks

How much weight of the carbon fiber hood compared to the original one??

Thanks for the videos it's was really informative. My question is in this case (fiat 500 hood) what was the weight of the finished product compared to the original one?