Monday, April 6, 2009

Fiber Glass experiment






So today during and after class i worked on my first experiment with this material. I found a scrap piece of yellow foam and vacuum formed styrene over top to get the female mold of a shape that had a sharp edge, small radii edge and a large radii edge. I did my first test with 6 minute epoxy and three full layers of glass. The 6 minutes was not long enough for me to take my time and apply multiple layers. However i did learn a lot from this. The long the set time the better. The more layers that i apply the stronger that the object will be. SO i went to Stanley's hardware after class and picked up two things of 2 hour epoxy. When i returned the first test was dry so i took that out of the mold. I reapplied the carnuba wax, which i am using as a release agent, to the mold. I mixed the epoxy and performed another test. This time i applied 6 or 7 layers and set it to dry. After about an hour i went to check on it and looks good so far. I am currently waiting for that to fully set. This test was successful. All of the edges were accurately formed.


























The next test i will perform is the process of vacuum bagging. After watching videos online about this process and reading articles about it I don't think I am going to test sand bagging because many people say that vacuum bagging always gives better results. What i need to do for this is get a sheet of plastic that is large enough to cover my mold. Them i have to secure all side so they are air tight. Attach a valve to the bag that will allow this vacuuming action to occur. I'm hoping that i will be able to use something in the shop for this so i don't have to spend much money on this test. The purpose of vacuum bagging is to get all the spare resin out from in between the layers of glass top increase the strength of the form.

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