[quote]ORIGINAL: SCALECRAFT
ORIGINAL: sensei
The consolidation of the laminate by debulking through a perforated release media into a blotter and removing excess resins would give the reduction in porosity and the structural quality you speak of, as well as a thin lightweight layup. Just wrapping a layup in handy wrap or placing in a plastic bag won't do that for you because the moment the resin soaks through and this bag and gets wet even if there was vacuum; it would no longer have an airway to pull any vacuum. In addition none of this will it keep fuel from finding it's way though the porosity, it will still need to be sealed from the IML.
Bob
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I think the weight issue would be nominal. Grams maybe. The ability for the tank to be leak free would depend on the treatment of the first layer.
For what Mr. Matt is trying to accomplish, the cling wrap has a good chance of working without the cost of vacuum bagging.
Steve
So you are stating a resin rich wet layup overall is almost the same weight as a controlled flow bag system layup, that is not nearly true, and the first ply of cloth down even as a pre-preg system will in no way insure that you will have a 100% porosity free and fuel proof tank, only slush coating the IML will do that for you. I head up a aerospace composite manufacturing company and several of the products we manufacture and assemble require slush sealing after assembly because we simply cannot leave it to chance then warranty our product without this process. On a side note, most all the product we sell are weight critical to our customers and I have spent nearly 40 years designing and developing composite and other substrate structures and ways to manufacture the lightest weight possible... So for what Mr. Matt is trying to accomplish with a one off is to just lay it up as I already stated and slush coat it. This way he doesn't need to leave it to chance that maybe it will work out.
Bob