timing the flow...

sometimes it's possible to get an idea of how things are progressing during an infusion by marking saturation lines and timing the progression. Above, you can see the start, 3 min line and the six min line. ....notice the distance betweent the 3 and the 6 is slightly shorter than the start to 3. That's an indication that the resin is slowing down due to its' increasing viscosity.

another little resin infusion clip

pulling resin into a vacuum bag ( resin infusion) is a lot cleaner than wet layup / bagging but it takes a little practice and a bunch of mistakes to learn how best to set up the flow.

It's easy to dive off the deep end into developing technique and experimentation but it's still hard to beat a simple wet layup that's finished off with a bondo spreader and peel ply. ..........knowing when to use the simplest or quickest methods goes a long way towards insuring you keep the project rolling.

infusion clip

resin infusion with a parrot on your shoulder and a video camera in one hand is a bit of a challenge..........

resin infusion

Here you can see the resin being sucked into the bag. infusion requires a good deal of prep work and if you set things up right, it is a very pleasant technique that minimizes potential contact w/ the resin and it can be very neat to watch......it's just a matter of using 3M77 to tack all your dry glass in place, wrap the part w/ peel ply, decide how to pull your resin, build a periferial vacuum manifold, w/ a resin brake then tap the center so that resin can flow outwards.

In this instance, I din't get a full infusion but it's easy to just tap into the bag where it's dry and repeat the process until you get your part.

Parts do come out really nice when things go right......

infusing the starboard side rinterior rails

here's some prep work involved in doing a resin infusion of the interior side rails....these are 10 inch wide webs that have unidirectional glass on the edges that get's bonded into the interior of the hulls. Infusing with system III Silver tip is difficult at best. I find it to be too viscous but if you use plenty of flow media it's possible.