Hi Matthieu,

We don't have a carbon/kevlar surfacing prepreg at the moment. To be honest, given the very specialist nature of the surfacing prepreg (it really only works perfectly at 240g for example) then I'm not sure we will ever stock a carbon/kevlar hybrid prepreg surfacing layer.

As for your plan of making your own prepreg, it's sort of possible but no one (apart from one aerospace company on YouTube that a lot of people have seen!) really makes their own prepreg. The reason is that the resins are quite specialist and if you use normal resins you won't get workable gel times and out-life that you need. In emergencies we've done something along these lines but it's nothing like as easy as working with the real stuff.

As for your question about using bagging film as release film, this might be possible but bagging film is considerably thicker than release film and so it's much more likely to cause problems with bridging; release film will work much better and you really do want everything to be going in your favour in order to get perfect results.

Matt



Matt Statham
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Sales

I have a 2 small questions,

Hi Matt
Sorry about that, I guess I did it again. Feel free to move or edit my post as you see fit. No problem at all.
I was talking to a composite manufacturer from Australia at Oshkosh, who made UAVs, a type of unmanned surveillance drone.
He said that autoclaves are on there way out with prepreg because as you said, the out of autoclave prepreg stuff is so good now the difference is hardly measurable. I will probably use mine more for compressing bubbles in plastic castings.
I will be ordering some of your prepreg soon.

Fred

 

Haha, OK, not a problem

Matt Statham
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Sales

Matt,
I guess I should've specified my previous reasons for wanting to build a pressure vessel like Freds, but I didn't want to clutter the thread... and yet here I am doing just that. I had been wanting to build one due to the results that are capable with it, but discovered hand laying and vacuum bagging can achieve very similar results. (I still want to build one though)
I apologize for supplying the unintended notion that one might be needed for your " non-autoclave" prepreg... hence its name!
David

David, and everyone else reading this thread - YOU DON'T NEED A PRESSURE VESSEL, that's the whole point of the article and the kit we're putting together.

Fred, I might have to do some 'surgery' on this article I'm afraid, it's accidentally giving a lot of people the impression you need a pressure vessel/autoclave which is exactly the opposite of the point I'm trying to make. I might start a new thread and move your very interesting pressure vessel info into it so I can get this thread back 'on message'.

Matt Statham
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Sales

Nice autoclave Fred!

Matt,

  I'd read in the previous posts that it wasn't considered "dangerous goods"... didn't even register with me!  looks like I've got to go find an old freezer and pressure vessel now... thanks again for everything guys!

David

Matt,

  I'd read in the previous posts that it wasn't considered "dangerous goods"... didn't even register with me!  looks like I've got to go find an old freezer and pressure vessel now... thanks again for everything guys!

David

Hi David,

You're welcome!

Shipping prepreg to the 'States should be pretty cheap actually, it's not 'dangerous goods' and so there is no surcharge of any kind. I expect a starter pack could be with 'next-day' for around £20-30 delivery.

--Matt

Matt Statham
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Sales