Steaming pile of Dog poo

[Flem]

This aint no already did it, pretend build along. This is happening in real time......



As in real slow time    Word to the wise, be careful what you ask for

[Roy from Pa]

Quality takes time.

[Flem]

So does procrastination.

[Bvas]

 

Would love to see how you tension all those strands.

[Longcruise]

Would love to see how you tension all those strands.

Me too

[Mad Max]

Me three

[Roy from Pa]

Me 4

[Flem]

I realized today when looking at my notes that I had used 1700' of S-glass, not 850'.
Can you imagine what a lengthy, tedious, PIA that is?
 

[Stagmitis]

Dang thats over 1/3 mile. Good thing you didnt have to walk it 

[Shredd]

I realized today when looking at my notes that I had used 1700' of S-glass, not 850'.
Can you imagine what a lengthy, tedious, PIA that is?
 

  Yes..!!   Yes, I do...  When I made glass it was about a foot wide...

[OldRawhide42]

Shreed that might be were you can gain some more speed on your bows.

[Shredd]

Or lose it...     

[Flem]

Dang thats over 1/3 mile. Good thing you didnt have to walk it 

Hell I'm just glad I didn't forget what I was doing half way thru and wander off
The only reason to make your own glass, is because nobody makes what you want. Homemade will not compare to manufactured and composite made with an open layup, will have a terrible resin to reinforcement ratio. Infused or vacuum pressed is much better, but still inferior to pultruded products.
I make my own because I like odd colors and effects.

[Stagmitis]

Partimers aside Flem I hear ya. I made my own not only for color but aslo because I could not find woven glass for the back of my bows-

[Flem]

Back at it again. It was good to take a break, because I am going to try some new products and techniques and I really needed to do some up front troubleshooting. When things get screwed up doing this, its a huge waste of time and materials. And its a good thing I did, because I was able to identify some mistakes I was about to make.
I don't have or would know how to use any modeling or simulation programs, so I have to scribble and try to visualize the process as it will hopefully be happening.

First thing I noticed was that I needed ports in the insulation for the tubing. I also decided to heat the form from the bottom with some green house heat mats. I want to avoid a temperature gradient that might retard the flow at the bottom of the form, which will be the show side of the glass. Epoxy flows better when its warm, but the pot life is reduced. So I'm thinking I will keep the pot away from any heat sources and as the epoxy flows into the form it should disperse and move faster. We will see if thats true

Another thing I changed was my resin infusion point medium. I have previously only used the scotch pad material as an air evac channel, not for diffusion. I don't know if it will get to compacted to flow resin well, so I decided to make a manifold by drilling a bunch of holes in a plastic T. I need the resin to flow in two directions, so hopefully this will avoid any constrictions. I could not find any similar examples to what I am attempting, so I'm a little nervous.

Two of the new to me products I'm trying out are the white tubing and the black cylinder attached to the clear tubing
The white stuff is vacuum line that is encased in a liquid impermeable sleeve. The black cylinder is a pressure balancing valve of some nature. I am hopeful they both work as advertised, because if they do it will eliminate the pressure gradient from inlet to outlet, moderate the resin feed rate and eliminate the need for a resin trap and optimize the epoxy/glass ratio. We shall see!

So this is what the form looks like, ready for a leak test. That reminds me of another new to me product. I using a nylon film to cover the form, rather than a full plastic sleeve as I have in the past. This system uses 75% less plastic, so I really hope it works well.

Getting close! Got the color mixed into pt.A. Looks like neon snot. It's either going to look way cool on a bow, or truly
heinous. I used some basic pantone colors that came in a sample pack from Smooth-On. This color was 30drops of yellow, 1drop of blue and 1drop white. It's very chartreuse in person

Then its getting degassed in this paint pot that got converted to vacuum
Oh Man, I'm starting to get really nervous now.

[Roy from Pa]

Very nice Flem

[Mad Max]

Watching 

[Bvas]

I like the color Flem. 

Apparently the fiberglass tensioning technique is a trade secret? 

[Mad Max]

Tell us about the fiberglass strands, cloth too  ?

[Flem]

I like the color Flem. 

Apparently the fiberglass tensioning technique is a trade secret? 

For now

Tell us about the fiberglass strands, cloth too  ?

The blue cloth in the layup picture is peel ply, it allows a clean release of everything you don't want to stick to the composite, mostly the green flow mesh.
The fiberglass strands are called roving or tow or yarn or whatever. It's a cluster of tiny glass fibers. Like 24 thousand per strand.

I like the color too!  It might be an acquired taste for most folks
And boy am I glad I did not catalyze it before I did a leak test on the bag. Holy crap! I was chasing leaks all afternoon. Apparently there is a learning curve to getting the film sealed well. I can see one advantage of using the plastic sleeve method. There is only about 20" of plastic to seam and I heat seal it. This film has about 170" of perimeter that has to be sealed with sticky butyl tape to the form. I'm going to fuss with it a bit more and hope for the best before I tear it off and do it again, more carefully