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Old 12-08-2007, 11:15 AM
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Default RE: My vacuum bag layup has crinkles, any advice?

Aside from what has already been listed above...About the only way your gonna get a repeatable smooth IML surface is to make yourself a caul...

Definition taken from About .com:
"Definition: Smooth metal plates, free of surface defects and of the same size and shape as a composite lay-up, used in contact with the lay-up during the curing process to transmit normal pressure and provide a smooth surface on the finished laminate."


http://www.fiberset.com/html/glossary/glos_c.htm
http://books.google.com/books?id=VkX...y7So#PPA206,M1
http://books.google.com/books?id=5t5...2dmec_XH-_hU7Q

Most of these links refer to cauls as being a metal plate which is not necessary...You could just do a 2 or 3 ply e-glass laminate (semi rigid) to the IML surface and use that as your caul...

A couple of ways to get there...One would be to wax up your mold with the appropriate "part thickness" tooling wax to get the IML dimensions....Or...Maybe an easier way: Just clean up the back side of the part you have pictured...Set it back in the mold and just do a wet lay-up to that IML surface...Remember it will be just like your OML as far as surface finish...So clean it up to suite your IML requirements...

If you use your existing laminate...I'd pay a little extra attention to the corner radii...If you had any bridging or resin rich corners in the initial part...Sand them to the correct part thickness prior to making the caul...Then your corners will come out nice and tight...If you don't fix them and the caul has loose tolerance corners...You'll have crappy corners in your parts...Hopefully that makes some sense...

I'm working on a project...It will be a few weeks before I get to making cauls...I wish was further along so I could show you some photos...Darn..

Have Fun...

Chuck

P.S. Nice looking work there!! As everyone else mentioned...Wrinkles are kinda part of the game...