Carbon Fiber lay up of designs

[meanroy]

Here are some thumbnails since I finally figured out I could do it! (BTW, if you try this DON'T USE FILE NAMES WITH SPACES!)

Now that the mold is more or less finished, I bought some supplies.

Cutting the cloth pattern - - - Squeegie the resin - - - a layer of microsphere-loaded resin in mold

I made a paper template for sizing the cloth - - - the cloth and resin are sandwiched between sheets of 3 mil mylar. I used a roller to sqeegie. The resin was mixed with glass micro-spheres and a layer poured in the mold.

I then painted a layer of fresh resin on the set-up microsphere-loaded resin, and laid the previously resin loaded cloth into the mold. It was difficult getting the air bubbles out and getting the cloth to conform to the shape of the mold. Unfortunately, the pictures I took of this process mysteriously "dissappeared" form the camera. Don't have a clue what happened.

Here is the "raw" part fresh out of the mold. Here it is on the bench, In the last photo, I have trimmed the foam somewhat and started laying out the instrument positions.

note I didn't show the step where I added the foam on the back that you can see in the second photo -
There were a few other problems encountered, as you can imagine! The worst was that when I was trimming the foam I uncovered a cavity in the foam with un-foamed jell in it. I happen to know that aerosol self foaming resin cures due to residual moisture so I got 'clever' and wet down the un-cured foam. Ok fine, I set it in the sun to cure and went away. When I came back in an hour or so the surface had cured up hard but the foam inside the cavity had continued to expand - warping the heck out of face of the panel! Believe me I didn't say "heck" when I saw that! I solved the problem by drilling 3/4" holes in the foam in several places and putting the part back in the mold with a REALLY heavy weight on it. It still isn't perfect but I can work with it.
Although I had hoped to skip the step of a second mold it is clear now that I really need to do another "Final finish" mold after I finish this one as I just couldn't get the details perfect working on the female mold directly.

~Roy.

Update:
The problem I had with the foam warping the front was a pain to overcome. I had to grind down the face flat and put a new layer of microsphere loaded resin on it. Working on getting the lines correct now and had to make some templates.

[meanroy]

Trying the
roughed out
Bezel in the front clip . Another view .. . . . Checking again after more surface finishing
. . . . . . . . .

OK,. So now I have a "dummy" part to make the final mold from.
I've learned a lot since I last posted. The next time I want to make a part it won't take anything like as long!
I still have some modification to do because I decided I wanted an embedded Aluminum faceplate for the instruments.

It turns out there is a place local here in the SF bay area which carries professional grade materials. They seem pretty helpful and I'm planning to drive up there to get the mold making resin. There is a special resin used to make molds. It has very low shrinkage and is simply painted on the "dummy" part and then reinforced after it hardens. Shrinkage caused me MUCH pain and the neccessity for an immense amount of re-work.

I hope to get up there before the end of the week and I will post the results of my trip when I get back.

Roy.

PS
I had to post these pics at in my Gallery/Journal at Hotroddrers because my site bandwidth is getting pretty high. If there is an objection to this let me know and I will try to figure out something else.

[Mustang]

whoo thanks for that

[meanroy]

OK, I just got back from a visit to ACP composites where I bought the materials for the final steps. I also returned with a wealth of information on "How it's really done"!
The President of the company showed me around, and I got some great pictures of his manufacturing facility as well.

On the way back, I backtracked a little, up to Maier Racing, in Hayward. Bill wasn't in but his son Mike was. (Mike did a bunch of work on my Mustang before it was stolen.) Mike is doing serious Chassis and Suspension work, and they had a bunch of new offerings for later model Mustangs going through some quality inspection when I arrived. I'll post the pictures a little later, after I get them sized and compressed a bit.

[pcgms]

It's looking good Roy. I've put the IRL car on hold awhile. After trying to scale it to 40% size I was finding I had bit off more than I could handle. So I have decided on doing a Toyota TS020 LM first. Simple body lines and less ancillary parts.
As I finish the foam buck, I'll post some pic's. Also with cost in mind, I think I'll try the fiberglass first. And it will be 1:6 scale so I should be able to mate it to a H.A.R.M. or FG Gas Radio Control chassis.
Here's a link to the H.A.R.M chassis so you can get an idea of what I want to acheive.
This scale racing is big in Europe and starting to grow here.
http://www.harm-racing.de/Cars_SX-3.asp?Lang=EN
John