Good morning to everyone!  

Im Mr. Andrea from Italy, I'man aerospace engineer student at LaSapienza University in Rome. I'm not newwith the composite, but I decided to upgrade all my systems for infusionprocess. I bought almost every things from EasyComposite in the last 2weeks. 

I'm making a special parts ofa motorbike with colored carbon fiber. I had several problems:

1) The first time I waste 2mold because I wasn't able to de-mould it. The surface was seriously damaged.The pictures speaks more than many words. I think it was the wax, because withPVA I don't had problems. 

-     I will post thename/picture of the wax later…

-     I put the mould immediatelyin the oven at 60°C, without waiting the gel time at 20°C. I cure it for 3,5hbefore de-mould.

-     We used 3M Super77 as spray adhesive

2) I decided touse PVA because I always de-mould any complex parts without issue. But in thiscase is always really hard to de-mould the parts; probably because we use sprayadhesive??

3) I have a lotof difficult to remove the mesh and the peel ply from the surface. Do you anyadvice of how to place it?

 

-     The vacuum pressure is 0,8bar. I use 20lt vacuum can (I had it).

-     The mould wasmade by vinylester resin

-     The mould’sgelcoat is polyester

-     We use Forex asflange’s material

-     The mouldsurface is not perfect, I posted some pictures.

-     I followed theMatt Youtube’s video on resin infusion.

I hope that myproblems was easy to solve, because I need to bring this part to a motorbike’sfair.

Thank you toeveryone!! 

Hi, assuming you used Epoxy Resin for the infusion I would say that your main problem is the Polyester Gelcoat used for the mould. Epoxy will stick to Poly especially if the mould is new and all the styrene has not gone from the Polyester. The PVA will have helped by creating a barrier between the Poly and the Epoxy which  is probably why that released better. When using wax or chemical release agents the styrene can bleed through. You could try putting the mould through several heat cycles to burn of the styrene or remake your moulds with an Epoxy compatible moulding system like Uni-Mould from EC.
Hope that helps
                         Warren

Carbon Copies Ltd

To add to what Warren has said I always find it best to 'season' a new polyester mould for the reason detailed.  If you don't fancy that you can buy mould sealers or, if you use easylease this is a sealer and release agent (it works very well). 

You should also check the temperature of your wax release agent.  Most waxes don't tolerate heating and given that you baked at 60'C you might have damaged the release layer causing your issues.

I'll triple what's been said, I often use polyester moulds, an anyone smells one spend at least three days in the airing cupboard if small or heated if their too big to ensure all the styrene is gone

Thank you guys! The mould was new, maybe less than a day between mould polymerization and use. 

I have tried several spray tacks over the years and they all have some negative effect on the surface finish. Some leave a slightly matt finish to the part that can be polished out others require flatting and clear coating to achieve a hi gloss finish. I now use GC50 clear gelcoat sprayed into the mould first. This has a couple of benefits it provides a tough hi gloss (if your mould is hi gloss) UV resistant finish straight from the mould.  Also (if you get the timing right) acts like a spray tack holding the first layer of cloth in place. You can still use spray tack as well but because you are spraying onto the GC50 it wont have the same negative effects on the surface finish.
On complex shapes I often use pro finish cloth, it doesn't drape as well as normal cloth but it allows clean cuts to be made so you can put the first layer down in pieces with pre planned cut lines. Neat cut lines (in my opinion) look better than badly distorted weave due to trying to get the first layer down in one piece.

Warren

Carbon Copies Ltd

I've done the same "problematic" mould using epoxy gelcoat and easylease as release agent. I also had more care on polishing the surface. The EasyLease is the better release agent I ever tried.  I will let you know the results of the infusion at the beginning of the next week!!