Channel: Matthieu Libeert

Category: Howto & Style

Tags: how toforgedlamborghiniprojecteasy compositesplatef1mouldingmekpfiberglasspolyestercarbonchoppedtutorialbelgiummat2fiberepoxymake aferrariboeingsampleresinanasaresinboilingcompressionmould

Description: Hi everyone! This is a new start of some series about Forged Carbon Fiber. Since short @Easy Composites Ltd is now also selling chopped Carbon Fiber 10-30mm with a non woven carbon fiber veil as well. First part will be about testing the resin uptake of the veil and chopped fiber using a polyester infusion resin. This could obviously be done with epoxy resin as well but didn’t really matter on this experiment. I go through a few points about chopped carbon fiber. It is indeed a “waste product” of “good carbon fiber” In my opinion it’s very hard to compare both as they both have their positive and negative points in different fields. The easy thing about polyester resin and chopped strands is the high amount of parts you can make a day once all parameters are set correctly. When properly used, employees with a basic knowledge can be able to make good parts in an easy way. If you have some good heated compression moulds you could make up to 10X the amount of parts per day compared to Prepreg or Resin infusion. On the downside you are not fully using the benefits of the strength of long carbon fibers. Formula 1 teams, NASA, Boeing would never use chopped strands but rather long continuous fibers as you might find in Uni-directional or biaxial fiber set-ups where you fully benefit of the strength to weight ratio of carbon fiber. Obviously polyester resin is less strong epoxy resin. On the other hand, it’s easier to work with and can cure in a quicker way. Polyester resins are also significantly cheaper and easier to find than epoxy resins. Disclaimer: Keep in mind that polyester resin has a lower boilingpoint due to the styrene in the formula. Easy composites polyester infusion resin can be used at full vacuum but keep in mind you might get some small problems with the resin boiling under full vacuum. On the other side, once you start a resin infusion you won’t have full vacuum once the resin is flowing through the fabric. A solution could be to infuse at a lower vacuum or like I did in the video let it flow through the fabric at full vacuum, close the vacuum side and let the resin-in side open a bit longer, thus lowering the level of vacuum in your bag. For more of my projects Make sure to follow me on: Facebook: facebook.com/MAT2COMPOSITES Instagram: matthieu.libeert twitter: @matthieutje65 web: mat2composites.com #forged #carbon #fiber #easycomposites