100 percent certianty

The carbon fiber chain plates are in the bag and it's nice to know with 100 percent certainty that all reinforcements are fully saturated.  This vac bag session involved laying 34 pieces of both glass and unidirectional carbon fiber. The key to being able to manage such an involved process is all in the preparation.   Before the first batch of epoxy was mixed, I measured and cut each piece of fabric and laid them out on a clean table in the order in which they were to be applied. The vacuum bag was also ready to go with a layer of breather, perf and peel ply in place.

To make it easy to apply the laminates, I mounted the two chain plates on a base standing up on ends. This allowed me to apply resin between each layer of unidirectional carbon offering an additional opportunity to squeegee the resin downwards insuring that all of the unidirectional carbon was aligned.

I have little doubt that something else will break first before these chain plates fail............Now I will be able to sleep like a cat when waves are bashing the cabin top.

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