Terrible Surface finish-Please help!!c


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nebraskatrevor
nebraskatrevor
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I need some help, I just recieved my first order of prepreg and after playing with it for the last couple days I am horribly disappointed.  I have been working with other prepregs from another supplier and I have had pretty good success with conventional prepreg that is meant to be cured in an autoclave even though I have been using it in an out of autoclave process.  So far the first 5 things I have tried to make with easy preg have all been complete failures.  I am super frustrated because I spent a lot of money to buy a couple yards of the material and have it sent to the US and at this point I am feeling like it all needs to be thrown in the trashcan because it seems completely useless.  I will describe the setup that I am using and maybe someone can tell me what I might be doing wrong.  I will also attach some pictures of the problems I am having.  I have tried metal molds, composite molds with a gelcoat surface, cnc machined solid teflon molds, and tonight even a sheet of glass to see if I could get a good surface finish and so far all have failed miserably.  For my mold release I am using a chemical release called Freekote 700nc which has performed beautifully with the other prepregs I have used.  I am vacuum bagging with a flexible bagging material called stretchlon 200 and with a solid release film and a breather cloth.  I have used cure schedules all over the map from 180 deg F for ten hours up to 275 deg F for less than an hour and all have yielded similar results  The max amount of vac I am able to achieve here is about 26.5inches of mercury and that has proven to be acceptable for the other prepreg I have used but I am wondering if it is not enough for the easy preg because I have read a couple of places that a near perfect vac level above 29 inches is necessary.  I leave the vac pump running throughout the process every time.  To top it all off I am not at all happy with how the cured fiber looks and  find it to be some of the most boring carbon fiber I have ever seen anywhere.  There seems to be such a lack of contrast of the alternating fibers that it almost doesn't even look like carbon fiber at all, I would hope that if I could get my surface finish issues resolved the appearance might also improve but I am skeptical that it will ever look as good as any of the other various  fabrics I have worked with.  For me the selling point of this prepreg was that it was great for making cosmetic parts and I am disappointed to say the least.  I appreciate any input that I can get and really hope that I am doing something wrong and that I can learn to love this easy preg!  Thanks for your help.

The first two pictures show a piece that I cured on glass,  It consists of one surfacing layers and two backing layers bagged up as  I have described above.  The last two pictures show some parts I have made with another brand of prepreg shown with the same piece molded on glass.  The skull and the outlet cover do have automotive clear coat on them and although I realize that it may not seem like a fair comparison I can tell you that the clear coat does not hide any flaws, but if anything tends to magnify them.
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carboncactus
carboncactus
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I'll let someone from EC tell me otherwise, but I think you'll find the surface layer cures between 65 and 120.
16 hours at 65 then for every 10 degrees you increase, cure time is halved (roughly). So 8 hours at 75, 4 hours at 95, 2 hours at 105 and 1 hour at 115/120. 
I ramp from ambient to 65, hold for 3 hours then ramp to 90 for 3 hours, let it cool down by itself then demould. Ramps are done at 1-2 degrees per minute, so it should take 20 minutes to get from 65 to 90.

The reason they ask to cure at 100 is because the backing layers cure at those temperatures. Are you using EC backing prepreg? I may be wrong, but its only what I can guess from my experience with prepregs, and I've used a fair share of them.

http://www.talkcomposites.com/Uploads/Images/db628ad5-e0e7-47b9-873a-3d84.png
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nebraskatrevor - 12 Years Ago
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