Good evening

I was wondering if it is possible to make a part that needs a split mould without the use of a curing oven. The latter is pretty much keeping me from trying prepregs as I can't use my domestic oven because I can't get a vacuum line in there and buying one isn't in the budget. Getting an old domestic oven just for this purpose where I can make a hole would be possible but I also don't really have the space for setting up a second oven...

My idea was to use a very slow curing hardener, i.e 210 or 300 minutes, and then hand lay up the carbon and epoxy inside the two parts before closing them and then add the vacuum bag and just wait until it's cured. I think the curing time would be plenty long enough but the big question is will the hand layup stick well enough to the mould so that it doesn't come loose in the process or how can it be made to stick well enough? Has anyone done this and can share some experiences?

Kind regards
Martin

Just an additional thought regarding the part that it sounds like you're trying to make (guitar?)

I think that I've seen these made utilising a 'joggle' ring that it placed into one half of the split mould prior to laminating and it sound like it might suit your intended production method more, as it does sound like making a guitar body in a closed mould as you've described would be very difficult to do well via hand lay-up

Basically you'd be making both upper and lower sections separately, but one half would have the narrow joggle (a slight step that matches the intended thickness of your the other half) placed around the top section of one mould prior to laying-up the fabric. Once cured, the joggle ring is removed first to leave you with a flange onto which you can bond the other half of the laminate. You would create the joggle ring by laminating around the top section of one of your mould halves, but the trick is to control carefully its thickness, so that you end up with a flange that closely matches the thickness of the other half of the guitar body (which helps to achieve a neat join in the middle).

Of course, the downside is that you have a visible join of the two parts around the middle, but you could fill and paint over to hide the join or even try to make this a bit of a feature.  If you have a search around YouTube I'm certain that you'll find examples of this technique being employed although, as alluded to already, the use of vacuum pressure (particularly resin infusion) would lead to a more consistent consolidation of the materials and control of thicknesses

Just a thought, as it might be a more realistic approach to achieving a decent-looking end product if you are limited to hand lamination