In boat building I have helped with infusion a few times. The number of inlets and outlets depends greatly on the size and shape of the part being molded. Most of the ones I have seen use hemostats or similar clamps to control which inlet and which outlet is used. This allows you to steer the resin a bit as well as reducing the wastage of resin.


The organizing is the key to success. With something like ribs where you are making several parts that are at least similar if not identical, you can watch how it works on the first one and refine your positioning with each successive part.

Weighing the carbon fiber, peel ply, mesh and plastic envelope before infusion and then weighing the finished ribs as well as the other components will give you a good feeling for how much wastage there is as well as how consistent the parts are for resin content. Epoxy resin is very dense so you want to keep it to the absolute minimum that will wet out the carbon.

Whether you are using a vacuum pump, a venturi with an air compressor or a shop vac, it is important to have a capture device to keep the resin out of the working bits. My favorites are either old shop vac picked up for a few dollars at a yard sale or going to Lowe's and buying their $20 wet vacs that use a 5 gallon bucket for the container. My trap is one made for trapping dust while sanding drywall. It uses the same 5 gallon buckets, the resin drops into the first bucket while a second hose goes to the wet vac.

I also recommend having several of the cheap shop vacs on hand so that if one dies you can immediately swap the hose to the one next to it. Make sure they can all use the same hoses. Some holes in the hose right before the vac keeps from burning out the motors. I start with none and then make one small one and keep enlarging it or add more holes to keep sufficient suction without burning out the vac.

Paul

(sailor going back to flying)


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