So, finally we discuss what I have been talking about for a while now VARTM or Vacuum Assisted Resin Transfer Molding.
Let's discuss briefly just what one needs to do this type of composite work.
1.) First a Vacuum pump or source of vacuum to evacuate the air and excess resin in the mold.
2.) A bagging material. This can be as simple as the plastic sheet material you can get at Home Depot or top of the line Nylon Bagging material the will streach up to 500%, like what I'm using.
This provides an air tight container for the vacuum to be sealed into.
3.) A Flow Material, or something that helps provide a channel for the resin to flow other than the actual fiber material you are using for the composite. They sell an expensive polyethylene random oriented fiber material, but I have found for many applications that a plastic window screen works very well and is priced cheaply.
4.) A peel ply material. This is typically a nylon or dacron material that does not bond to the resin. It is placed just below and on top of the fibers to be infused with the mixed resin...so that after everything has cured, you can just easily peel it off of the cured composite surface.
5.) Finally a low viscosity epoxy resin designed for composites. The low viscosity/thin liquid helps the wet out of the part happen quickly allowing the mixed resin to move to all parts of the composite.
Other things needed are something to seal the edges of the bagging material. We typically use blue painters tape.
Tubing to connect the manifolds to the vacuum source and the resin source.
Plastic Tee's, spyral plastic tubing and springs to keep the spyral tubing from collapsing under the vacuun and heat.
A mixed resin trap, so as not to allow the mixed resin to be sucked into your vacuum source and a heat source if you are wanting to speed the process up and or lower even further the mixed resins viscosity.
So this pic shows my vacuum pump, resin trap, aluminum molding sheet, and insulation below the aluminum sheet for containing the heat.
-------------------- A few I enjoy,
and a few more in the works ;<)
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