6.13.2010

Humility

For reasons that I cannot explain, I was not 100 percent certain that I had achieved full resin penetration. Knowing that I will one day face some harsh conditions, and that I did not want to have this weighing heavy on me while waves bash over the bridgdeck cabin, I took the chop saw and laid waste to a weeks worth of my labor.

Good thing.......only half of the 10 layers of carbon were fully bonded together. I'm not sure whether to be happy or sad.

What have I learned?  Sometimes infusing a part may not be the way to go.  For my next go, I will lay this web on end and hand lay each layer of carbon then vac bag to get the proper resin to reinforcement ratio........"poor Horatio, he was only half a boy"  ( Opey Taylor)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eI689Qxaao

3 comments:

geoffrey said...

Allen where was your vacuum and did you have he foam perferated? did you see the last issue of pro boat which showed a 6 inch thick stack being infused?

Geoffrey

Anonymous said...

I've infused every part of my boat (F39) except the carbon chainplates. Besides of making these parts in the beginning of my building adventure and in that time not having much infusion experience, somehow I felt infusing these carbon parts was one step too far. Nowadays I know much more, for instance for infusing UD fibres the flow direction is critical (square on fibre direction). It still will take some time before I will attempt this but it will be most interesting as I (still) have in mind making the carbon mast.

Henny

geoffrey said...

Henny:

That is great point. The picture I sent of the bow beam I infused did have the main infusion line running down the length of the tube which was coincidentally the direction of the uni. The spreader supports were not as successful so this may explain. After reading Allen's experience I think I will dod aa muck up of a sample chain plate and cut it up to see the completeness of the infusion with regards to the uni. Geoffrey