Dear friends of Easy Composites,

 

First of all, I would like to congratulate youfor your complete web site (also carbonmods) and your very well explainedvideos.

I write you because I plan to start a projectwith carbon fiber very soon and even though I have been reading a lot about howcomposites function and also watching all your videos in youtube, still I havesome unanswered questions related to my project. Hope you can help me a littlebit with that.

My project consists in making a transport casefor my musical instrument. But I have several problems mostly in how to makethe first steps and also in which way I can get the best possible results.

1. I am planning to make a mould, but I wouldn’tlike to put any wax or release agent, gel coat etc. over my expensiveinstrument. So I thought about making a copy of the structure with metal plateor with foam. Which material do you think works better for making round edgesin several directions?

Then I am thinking about two possibilities: oneis to use the structure made with the new material as a mould and apply thecarbon fiber layers over that structure following a kind of skinning process inorder to make the case around of it. Is it possible? How should I proceed foravoiding the metal or foam to get stuck to the carbon fiber? The best qualityresult should be in that case the outer layer, is it possible to get nice resultsin the last applied layer with this system? Should I sand paper it and polishit later for getting the good results?

The second possibility is to do the opposite:create a mould from the copied structure of the instrument and then work likewith a normal mould, applying the carbon layers inside the mould.

 

2. Then, my instrument is very sensitive totemperature changes, and is very common that it’s damaged going from -20ºC instreet to +22ºC in a room. I was thinking in putting a layer of carbon fibre,layer of Kevlar and layer of carbon fiber, because I don’t want to be too thickcase. What do you think? Is Kevlar good thermic isolator? Do you recommend someother material for this purpose compatible with epoxy resin?

 

3. I was thinking about placing a special foamhigh resistance to impacts and also thermic isolator. Do you know some foam suitablefor this purpose? Which is the best way of attaching the foam to the compositecase? Do I need special glue for that or what do you recommend?

 

4. And the last question, I would need also toseal the two parts of the case when they close. Would be perfect to find amaterial which could seal air-tightly and isolates temperature. I have readthat PVC is quite good on that. Do you recommend some material for this? Is PVCcompatible with epoxy resin? How can I attach it to the composite?

I am sorry about asking so many questions, but I amtrying to figure out by myself taking out a lot of sleeping hours and I can’tfind the answers.

Thank you very much in advance for your patienceand attention, and hope to read soon from you.

Best Regards!

 

Dear friends,

I have started now with my project and couple of questions have comen to my mind. Hope you can help a bit with your valuable knowledge as usual.

I have made a pattern of Foam, and I think is quite ok, but about the nexts steps:

1. I don't know if I had a mistake, but the Foam supplier recommended me to use a polyester putty, because the foam is hard but porous. I bought and applied one layer of polyester putty, but in the can is written that this putty is also porous, and another layer of a complementary putty should be applied on the top of that.
Do you think is necessary? Did I make a mistake already in the process?

2. I was planning to add a logo to the case. I have contacted with a serigraphy supplier for making a PVC plate. My idea is to make a hole in square shape in the foam's surface, so that when I try to get the case, there is the same squared-hole on it. The question is: Once the case is fully cured, can I add the PVC plate in the squared-hole and add some extra epoxy resin for holding it to the case inside the case surface, and then sand paper the area and polish it for leaving a very smooth surface with the logo inside? The idea is that the PVC plate remains inside the surface of the case, not on the top of the case, sorry if I don't explain myself properly. 

Hope you can help me with these questions.

Thanks, hope you are spending a great summer!

Hi,

1. I don't know if I had a mistake, but the Foam supplier recommended me to use a polyester putty, because the foam is hard but porous. I bought and applied one layer of polyester putty, but in the can is written that this putty is also porous, and another layer of a complementary putty should be applied on the top of that.
Do you think is necessary? Did I make a mistake already in the process?

I'm not familiar with the filler/putty that you're using to coat your foam pattern so I honestly don't know if it's right or not. Remember that you'll now have a polyester surface on your part and so you need to be very careful about what you make the mould from in order to ensure that it will release OK from the pattern. Our Uni-Mould system would be OK because it used a vinylester gelcoat and so it will release fine but epoxy tooling gelcoat would not.

Regarding your logo I'm afraid I can't quite understand what it is that you want to do so I'm not sure what advice I can give you. Maybe try re-phrasing?

All the best, Matt

Matt Statham
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Sales