Rich but if not to clear coat UV destroy your parts!

I dont clear coat my polyester parts.. No need too.... I only clear coat the pre-preg carbon... I have only been doing this for about 18 months and my first pre-preg part was about 9 months ago.... lol.. I am learning so much and having to do so very very fast...... lol. My Name is Rich..

OK Morepower i dont know you name but thanks! by the way i done stuf with polyster resin and thats bad thing coz when you clear coat wait a little and sterin from polyster not cure and start to eat and to set down clear coat surface even till carbon pattern.

Tom there is so little resin in the pre-preg that putting a dry cloth layer in there would suck all the resin it can off the surface of the pre-preg part and there would not be enough resin in the part to work....

You can get good results with wet lay too and do almost as much with wet lay parts as you can with pre-preg.. It is just pre-preg is lighter and stronger.

These parts are wet lay carbon using a polyester resin...



And this is pre-preg carbon  before being clear coated..


After clear coat.


You need to either use all pre-preg or all dry and use either polyester or Epoxy resin as you cannot mix the two different techniques.

Warren can i use first layer pre pre and other layer dry cf? or this bad idea?

The breather debate will rage on forever!

With most OOA designed pre-pregs you will have NO problems using breather over the whole part.

Also You will achieve perfectly good results only having breather to edge of the mould.

The whole point of the breather is to ensure there is a path for entrapped air to get out.  Clearly on the pre-preg itself, there are plenty of channels and gaps for air to escape. Realistically the only problem areas seem to be where it is bag against smooth mould or bag on bag that could stop air being sucked out.

Most parts I make now only have breather under the vacuum port to the edge of the mould.

As long as the air has a path to get out then IMO it matters not what you do with breather

Warren Penalver
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Support Assistant

I use the lightest breather I can buy for my bodykits... but there are a few places that I had problem getting the breather down without bunching and that was where I had issues early on... But when I just used release film in those areas I stopped having problems.... But the second tray looks good and your technique works, so I dont blame you for doing a few more tests without breather...

Yea, I'm almost convinced now that breather should not be used OOA, maybe only on the other side. It's like it acts as a cushion spreading the force across itself. That, along with the stretching capacity of the bag means tight corners don't get enough pressure.

Looks like a good result without breather..... I have areas of the seat unit where I dont use breather and it comes out prefectly. If I put breather down in that area it bunches up and the breather seems to reduce the amount of clamping force between bag and the material..