How much Epoxy?

[Toesidereefer]

I know this is a very relative question, but I want to keep within a budget. I'm going to be wetting out 1 layer of Texalium glass top and bottom 8.9oz with vacuum bagging. The board has already been skinned with 4oz. and the board is a 128x37. Approximately how much epoxy resin will I need just for the lamination? I really don't want to buy a bunch of resin that I may not ever use again. 3 pints, 2 quarts, 1 gal.?

[sq225917]

ask eddy diffusivity, he builds and uses texalium

[zfennell]

cut and fit all the layers of cloth you plan to use.
weigh the cloth.
you'll need approximately the same amout of resin.

[radiorental]

this isnt related to your question, I havent used Texalium( what is it?) but I have noticed good results at 18hg-22hg vacuum. More than that I find too much resin is wetted out. This may be useless info for texalium.. or if you are not using a gauge.. but I thought I'd pass it on

[crabman]

Weigh the cloth x by 2.8 to 3.0

[4T]

i'm totally with zfenell here.
you will need roughtly the same weight in resin as you have weight of cloth.

if you do a hand layup with no vacuum you will robably get a resin to fibre ratio of just under 50%. so 50/50 works fine for mixing as you will always have a little bit of resin wasted in the cup and on tools.
with vacuum consolidation you should be able to bring it down to 40-45% of resin content, pregregs usually have 35 to 38% of resin impregnated.

i don't know where huffypuffy gets his figures from....

good luck.

[crabman]

SP, Southampton Institute etc etc ,they must be wrong! One for your tool face ,one side for your cloth and one for the other side of the cloth .I make that times three.I said times 2.8 to 3.0 What do you build? .Bloody hell.

[crabman]

this isnt related to your question, I havent used Texalium( what is it?) but I have noticed good results at 18hg-22hg vacuum. More than that I find too much resin is wetted out. This may be useless info for texalium.. or if you are not using a gauge.. but I thought I'd pass it on

Ask Hexcel Composites

[4T]

SP, Southampton Institute etc etc ,they must be wrong! One for your tool face ,one side for your cloth and one for the other side of the cloth .I make that times three.I said times 2.8 to 3.0 What do you build? .Bloody hell.

take it easy. no need to huff and puff over this.

do you really believe that when you manufacture a 1m^2 composite panel [fibre/foam/fibre] with 500g/m^2 fibre each side of the foam, that you need 3kg of resin to do so?
when i worked for SP-Systems in Germany back in the 90's we wouldn't have recommended 3kg and in my own composite manufacture company that i have been runnin for 5 years now i would use around 1kg [depending a bit on how coarse the pores in the foam are].

i would always recommend to buy a bit more resin than you think you need to cover all those "little accidents" that happen. you sure don't want to be stuck in the middle of the process with no resin left because you tipped the cup over...

good luck and always wear protective gear when working with compsite materials.

[crabman]

Sorry 500gsm of cloth x by 250 to 300 % = desired resin in grams depending on cloth.