How to make carbon fiber octogonal pipe

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How to make carbon fiber octogonal pipe

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macbar	m macbar posted 5 Years Ago HOT Topic Details
m Group: Forum Members Posts: 2, Visits: 19	Hi I need to make 50 cm long carbon fiber octagonal pipe 50mm flat-flat with wall thickness of 2mm, outside surface quality is important. Im looking for ideas how to make it. Currently the best solution i came with is to do vertical vacuum infusion with heat formed pvc pipe as outside mold. If you have any ideas, guidance please share.
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oekmont	oekmont posted 5 Years Ago HOT Post Details
Group: Forum Members Posts: 550, Visits: 27K	I can assure you Steve, if you can get propped aluminium for this tool for less than it would take to make a unimould tool, it has to be from an illegal source. And cnc tooling is only cheap if you "know someone". Even if you do it yourself it get's more expensive than you might think.
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Steve Broad	Steve Broad posted 5 Years Ago HOT Post Details
Group: Forum Members Posts: 408, Visits: 4.1K	+x oekmont - 6/22/2020 5:36:58 PM I can assure you Steve, if you can get propped aluminium for this tool for less than it would take to make a unimould tool, it has to be from an illegal source. And cnc tooling is only cheap if you "know someone". Even if you do it yourself it get's more expensive than you might think. It's not what you know but who you know :-) I have my own 2.5 axis CNC machine so can do simple stuff. This machine has paid for itself may times over. Anything complicated and I go and see a guy who owns a machine shop with state of the art CNC machines. He does jobs for cash as weekends so this wing vent mould cost me £100 all in. If making multiple items from the same mould I don't think that you can beat aluminium. Easy to polish and difficult to damage. You just have to adjust your curing ramps, if using prepreg, to take into account the temp lag caused by thick aluminium.
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beliblisk	b beliblisk posted 5 Years Ago HOT Post Details
b Group: Forum Members Posts: 53, Visits: 2.8K	That is great price for nice mould...... perhaps you could offer ALU mould making service for the forum
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Steve Broad	Steve Broad posted 5 Years Ago HOT Post Details
Group: Forum Members Posts: 408, Visits: 4.1K	+x beliblisk - 6/22/2020 9:43:38 PM That is great price for nice mould...... perhaps you could offer ALU mould making service for the forum :-) Two reasons why not. 1. I didn't make this one. 2. I don't have enough time to do the stuff that I want!
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