This video is about a test I did to see how far I could get fast infusion resin to flow under a caul plate. To optimize for thermal considerations I made the mold (table) surface hot to reduce resin viscosity and make it flow faster. I kept the resin in the pot cooler to keep it from gelling too fast. Laminate is 1.6mm of woven (face plies) and biaxial e-glass in a balanced QI layup. Besides using fast resin – which was just asking for trouble – it worked better than I thought it would.
Certainly with some tuning and slower resin, it would be possible to infuse large plates/parts with two molded surfaces. In this case I was testing to see if a two-sided tool could do for a project I’m working on… sort of a VRTM process but with disposable bag over a caul plate instead of two full tools. Would like to try perimeter feed to a center vacuum point!
This experiment will also show up as Laminate Sample #19. I’m doing a run of e-glass/epoxy variations – at least until I finally get my hands on some vinyl-ester infusion resin!
Also – I’m loving the thermal camera. As with many tools that once you have them you find tons of uses for them – this is something I wish I bought 5 years ago! This is a low-mid range hand-held Flir unit. Going to try to use it to find vacuum leaks next!
Hi, what material did you use as a caul plate?
I’m not sure – it was a thin (1mm or so) piece of plastic that was a shelf liner from some closet organizer… maybe polyethylene? I just needed something to give the top surface a shiny finish for clarity. A better caul plate would have been thick enough to actually keep the top surface flat!