I am new here and have had a quick look through the forums and on the easy composites website/videos and I have yet to see any real advanced techniques shown (please correct me if I'm wrong and there is in fact advanced tutorials somewhere that state the techniques that I am referring to).

nothing wrong with the OP's tips and they sure do have thier places in the higher levels of advanced composites.

Use of carbon and woven materials the process' used with them are by industry standards "advanced".

most the composites industry is still using pikey spec chopped strand mat wet laid with polyester.............. 

Spike rollers and breather tows are something we have never had the need to use at this level.  Im not sure there would be significant benefit in advising people to do it either. 

Same with "issues" around ramp rates and dwell times.

Sure on large production scales and in critical industries where you need the ultimate reliability, consistancy during manufacture etc it may well be a necessary process to ensure minor faults dont screw up a large expensive layup.  However that is not the case for most of our customers.

The pre-pregs we use and sell, we generally have never had issues with ramp rates needing to be too critical or dwell periods.  Perfectly good parts are being achieved daily both by us, and more importantly our customers with the techniques we advise currently.

Not saying we don't welcome further advice and ways to improve, we do and update things as and when.  But we also don't want to make things complicated when in practice its not necessary for most of the people using our products.

As said before, many techniques and processes have thier place, albeit with overlap. 

As an example, in our workshop once we had got some experience of the pre-pregs we use, we can just put them straight into our oven (which is on all the time) with no ramp up rates or similar.  The reason we "get away with it" is because a room temperature mould of any reasonable size will naturally have a reasonable temperature ramp up rate as it absorbs heat from the oven anyway.


Im sure some people will find your guide useful so we welcome extra information and advise, however what may work for you and seem the only "professional way" to do something isnt necessarily the case for others so would prefer people to be more open minded rather than saying "x is wrong, y is right, z is un-professional etc".  We try to keep it friendly here so more discussion the merrier!! We don't want to end up like some other composites forums where people get dissed and slated for not doing things one way or another.

Warren Penalver
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Support Assistant