How to Make a Prepreg Carbon Fibre Mould (Using XPREG® Tooling Prepreg)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 มิ.ย. 2024
- Full 'Shopping List' on our Project Page:
www.easycomposites.co.uk/lear...
Direct links to the XPREG® Tooling Prepregs:
www.easycomposites.co.uk/comp...
Advanced composites video tutorial demonstrating the process for making a highly accurate, temperature stable prepreg carbon fibre mould suitable for the production of preprep carbon fibre components. This tutorials continues from where we left off with the CNC produced epoxy pattern and demonstrates the correct technique for laminating, bagging and curing a prepreg carbon fibre composite mould tool. - แนวปฏิบัติและการใช้ชีวิต
about time you guys made a new video,love all the videos and keep posting
Great tutorials!! keep on posting!
Excellent tutorial!
I have to say this it's the first corporate site I ever subscribed to! Good work on the videos.
Thanks Rex, we try to keep the videos as un-corporate as we can (whilst remembering that the only way we can make them is if some people do use us for their materials!).
Awesome... I actually watched whole thing... )))
good insight to process, excellent videos.
For best results, use +/-45 ~20mm wide strips around all corners and debulk before the first skin goes on, then you woulddn't need to overlap first skin down. Then you ought to have some (usually from heavyweight) bootlace reinforcement in corners after the first ply debulk
Great video as always!
Thanks! We're very pleased with this one because it's a topic that's simply never covered. Everyone knows there's another way to make moulds but very few have seen it or understand it. We have the third video in this series coming out in a week or so which - along with the preceding videos - should demonstrate an end-to-end advanced composites process that can be used to realise any 3D CAD design into a precise carbon fibre component.
This is amazing. When I think of how much work it took to make my carbon fiber molds compared to this???
I can't wait to try this process.
Thanks Fred; yes, this is good time saving technology. Not the right answer for all moulding situations but certainly could be very useful for the precision products you make!
Please, more and more new videos. THX.
Keep posting videos
Thanks for your video
Love you guys
Can you imagine the satisfaction Paul must have every time he pulls one of his moulds out of that oven, what a pro!
Love all of your videos. Many thanks!
You're very welcome, we love making them.
super educative video
Great videos
Wow, the Xpreg system seems to be a lot faster. By the look of it, it makes beautiful molds too. (Easy composites, please put links to go directly to the product, to check price and purchase, in the comments for your tutorials)
Good point Martin, I've added 3 links to the description, the top one links you to the project page on our website - these pages have a 'shopping list' on the right hand side which links to all the products used in the tutorial (from the XPREG to the bagging film to the oven!). The other two links are direct to the XPREG XT135 pages on our site. It's certainly true that these tooling prepregs are quite a bit more expensive than conventional component prepregs but by the time you take everything into consideration (the efficiency of the way you can use the material, the speed, and the reliability of the end-result) they should stack up very well.
Excellent response, thanks. This is why Easy Composites is the best composites company on the internet!
just used this to do some of my moulds very clean use, but took me 3 hours :D i guess i am not as fast. And i find the surface carbon fiber was more difficult to apply as it wasnt sticky, used some hair dryer and it was sticky again, the backing ply was so easy to apply as it sticks like a glue. The mold still in the oven cant wait to see the results.
You can use a heat gun or hair dryer to improve the tack no problem - it is quite common as the tack on some pre-pregs can vary.
Impressive🙂
Alot of people moaning about the length of cure time. But if you weigh it up against normal gel coat drying times, then lay up of mould, air dry then post cure. Not much difference apart from this is so easy and clean. Just made my first mould using this very impressed. Just hoping it lasts...
Hi Tom, it certainly should, just because the system isn’t bulky doesn’t mean it’s any less tough. Also, agree on cure time. All ‘tooling’ prepregs have very slow and low cure times in order to minimise expansion of the pattern and so maximise accuracy. You could cure faster at higher temperature but in so doing you’ll generally expand the pattern or introduce internal stresses that can cause a slightly distorted tool. Once you’ve laminated the tool, you just load it into an oven and you can just leave it curing away in the background whilst you crack on with something else. I’d say in terms of hands-on work it’s no slower than wet layup. Looking forward to hearing how you get on.
@@easycompositestv Well first time I have pinhole free! I think I can clear coat this just once. For the last 12 months I have been fighting a loosing battle trying to make uni mould work with xpreg because I'd rather quit than make make another epoxy mould 🤣.
Only thing I'd like to improve is the print through on mould. After the 65 cure it was great. Then after the 135 cure I had a bit of print through is there a slower cure again to help?
And lastly the mould surface has little holes in now. Like the s120 sealer went bit weird? It did seem smooth before because I 1200 grit sand and 3 coats of sealer. But now the part comes out like sandpaper because of the little holes in the mould.
Hello What sort of knife cutter exactly would you recommend to cut the prepregs? :)
I’d love to see you guys roll up a fishing rod blank
Is there a 3d printable filament suitable for manufacturing a prepreg mold?
Nice job . ...its amazing ... But we have not material of carbon here in my cantry ...
New subscriber here.
hi!
did the breather soak up some resin (after the final oven/cure)?
if yes, was that through the release film, right?
thank you!
A small amount of resin went into the breather which you can see as the vacuum bagging stack is removed during the video.
it is because the release film was the perforated one, right? or...
thank you!
awesome!, I would like to know about any training session for light weight flight parts creating. like Glider and mini motored flight.
We do not offer specific courses. We are not currently running our introduction course to advanced composites course due to COVID and other factors.
Nice.
Thanks
I make no use of these tutorials, but I like watching them.
Awesome stuff
Minor imperfections can be lightly sanded and polished out if necessary.
@@easycompositestv Thanks
would it not be easier to cnc cut the negetive mold right away?
We did discuss this (and show it) in the preceding video where we explained that it is *possible* to CNC machine the female mould directly from epoxy block however such a mould would have a much higher CTE and really only be durable enough for prototypes and small runs. By taking the mould off the pattern at low temperature (when the pattern won't expand much) and then post-curing the mould off the pattern at high temperature you can produce a highly accurate, very low CTE mould and use it at up to 135'C (in the case of the XPREG XT135 system).
Thank you for the answer, makes perfect sense
Easy Composites Ltd sorry, but CTE is a "Coefficient of thermal expansion"?
I'd assume so. I could see why making your mold and part out of the same material would be optimal for dimensional stability during curing.
Marcus Quintilian tnx!
Could this be laminated and made into a replacement bow on an old crossbow? I have an old one that isnt sold anymore and parts are hard to find.
In theory yes, although you would need careful consideration of the actual lay up of the part to match the original.
so if I want to make a motorcycle fairing, can I lay this over the original part? and will it mark the original part?
Great videos BTW
The fairing and any flanges you add to it would need to be suitable for the temperature for the initial cure portion of the mould curing cycle which is 65C for it to survive the mould making process.
use the vacuum infusion method to make fairing and then apply teflon coating to the outer surface for low air resistance.
Great looking part.
Only thing is every video shows you making a mold first...anything I would make I only need 1 part. So making a mold would double the cost. Need more videos on how to do "Moldless parts".
Well, this video is showing a prepreg manufacturing process. Since the prepreg requires high temperature to cure you would always need a suitable mould. For mouldless production you need to bear in mind that you still need something to create the form - so, assuming we're using the original part as a 'former' - the carbon fibre part you take off this original part will be dimensionally different from it (i.e. it will be larger by the thickness of the material) and the new part will have its good surface on the inside and it's rougher, less accurate 'B side' will be the outside. For this reason, mouldless production is not generally that viable.
I was actually referring to your videos in general...I should have posted this comment on the "hood making video...Or the Carbon fiber Hood scoop video...as it wasn't heat treated.
Also I think alot of parts can be made over pieces and "trimmed back" to fit as alot of automotive parts have large body gaps..
I’d love to send you a set of my Ducati 999 race fairings so you could do a video on how to make molds and fairings! Not many videos out there for motorcycle stuff. Heck I’d send you fuel tank too if you’d do a how to video on it as well.
Bike fairings in principle are exactly the same as any other automotive panels.
Is it posible to do this with a clothing vacuum bag? Or do they fail in the oven?
Im looking to do some RC sail planes and would appreciate some beginning recommendations
Unfortunately not, whilst clothes-type vacuum bags are fine for room temperature, low-vac pressure processes (like in our simple vacuum bagging video), they're not suitable for high-temp, high-pressure.
can I start the first layer with backing ply without using surface ply? does the release agent still do the job? I d like to make a pipe with large diameter by using an aluminium pipe.
The surface ply is specially formulated with the extra resin needed to give a good quality mould surface finish so you can't really just use the backing ply.
thx!
Hola soy de México...veo y me interesan mucho sus videos y su canal.... sería mucho pedirles que subtitulen sus videos al Español???
O en su defecto recomienden un canal que haga este tipo de videos con sus productos por favor.
hola hermano puedes usar los subtitulos y traducir por el video
Can this be used, if not having a professional oven and just a regular home oven? Is pro oven a must or...?!
Looking forward to reply
Most domestic ovens lack the accurate temperature control. Also you ideally need to be able to program the cure cycle.
Easy Composites Ltd thanks for reply.....!
Do you have to let the whole roll defrost or can you just cut a section you need? Great vid!
You have to thaw the whole roll before you can take it out of the sealed bag, otherwise you can get condensation forming on the roll which *could* contaminate the prepreg. Once it's thawed, it's common to cut off a length to make a shorter roll to work from. You then re-freeze the larger roll and work from the smaller one. The out-life is 4 weeks at room temperature so it's very practical to work this way and you have the confidence that when you go back to the larger roll you know you're working from fresh material that has most of its out-life left.
Is there any reason to make the mould from the part instead of machining the mould? It could have saved the step of fabricating the mould.
Moulds machined from the model board can be used but generally do not have the same durability and lifespan as a properly made mould.
Please make a video on split mold carbon infusion
Hi Rohan, yes, we definitely plan to do that, lots of people have asked so it's on the list!
The carbon fiber adhesive is exactly the type, Sir?
Please see the description above for a list of all products, with links, used in the tutorial. There's also a link to the project page on our website where you can buy all the products shown.
So do I have to oven cure carbon fiber if I did wet layup?
NO, most wet lay up is with room temperature curing resins.
What is the life expectancy of that mould with that process making those parts 50 parts? and if it was a vacuum forming mould better or worse?
Depends on the cure cycle, how hard it is to demould etc but a good quality mould could well last hundreds of pulls with a little care and maintenance.
Easy Composites Ltd cool beans thanks :)
is this process possible for making mould used in autoclave ?
The XT135 system is for out of autoclave moulds and is not suitable for autoclave use.
What does the backing ply do. What's it for?
To add strength to the mould.
can you guys make a video on how to make a bumper?
Same as the comment below about the fender, I think we covered this pretty well in the bonnet/hood video, unless you want to see it done in prepreg; basically though- the process would be the same for a bumper as for making a smaller item and we will be doing a new video in couple of weeks showing how we use the mould made in this tutorial to make the carbon fibre part itself. A bumper could be made in prepreg in just the same way but it does mean you need a large oven.
Easy Composites Ltd i was wondering because a bumper you cant really do it in 1 large piece of carbon fiber so would you cut sections for the fog and turn signal area?
That's correct. It's covered in the video about the bonnet/hood, where they cut sections in for some of the components afterwards.
Informative video, could you guys do a vid of how to make a carbon fibre fender for a car?
I think we pretty much covered this with the bonnet/hood making tutorial didn't we? - The process for making a fender would be the same but you would only need to make a single skin which means less mould and less work. That tutorial used the resin infusion process but you could also use prepreg carbon fibre - we'll have a new prepreg tutorial coming out in a couple of weeks.
Yes I remember seeing your tutorial on the hood. But is it the same process for the mould? 1 for front and one back, or would you need to break it up in multiple sections to get it to release?
A replacement fender panel usually would only use an outer skin. If you really wanted to, you could do an inner and outer skin just like the bonnet video. As for the split, if it does need to be a split mould then this is totally do-able (as per the split mould process we showed in the airbox video).
how this will that become with the 3 layers used? and what is teh strenght of it?
Hi Mauro, approximately 2.5mm thick. The shape of this mould means it is plenty strong enough for its use.
Did anyone catch how long was the initial low temperature cure and then the high temperature post cure, and what was the temperature curve for the high temperature post cure?
I would recommend you read the full processing guide for the XPREG XT135 Tooling Pre-preg system as it details all stages of the cure and postcure including graphs and tables to help you program your PID oven controller. You can download the guide here: system.eu2.netsuite.com/core/media/media.nl?id=167990&c=3937524&h=4eb81cb946d37401a0db&_xt=.pdf
Thanks.
For anyone else just browsing and wanting a quick summary/outline/idea, about 18 minutes for each and at 65 degrees (C) for the initial cure with the post cure stepping up from 50 to 135 degrees.
hi is there any video of yours making atv plasic covers.
Not specifically but many of our videos for panels and other similar shaped parts will apply to making ATV plastic covers and parts.
genial
Defrosted? Does this stuff need to be refrigerated or frozen in storage? If so, at what temperature?
It needs to be kept in a freezer at -18C or lower.
@@easycompositestv that's gonna be hard cause our freezers over here only do Fahrenheit
-18'C is approximately 0'F
Is this possible with kevlar as well?
There are no kevlar tooling pre-pregs that we know of. Kevlar based pre-pregs are quite rare but it is possible to use a pre-preg kevlar in a similar way.
Where I get yours company's row Materials in India ?
I'm afraid it's not really possible to buy our materials in India. We do have some large commercial customers in India (aerospace, UAV, military) but we're not really able to supply end users.
What was the curing time and temperature? (sorry, i am Hearing impaired)
No problem, actually we will add the captions to this tutorial in the next few days which should help you too.
The first cure (low temp cure, on the pattern) is:
1°C/min ramp to 65°C, hold at 65°C for 16hrs, natural cool.
The second cure (post-cure, off the pattern) is:
0.1°C/min ramp up to 135°C, hold at 135°C for 3hrs, natural cool.
Fine ... Thanks a lot. You have no branch for delivery in Germany? I'am interested in the curing oven, but delivery to germany is tough payment ...
Is there a way to.soften the prepreg resin ?
You can gently apply a small amount of heat using a heat gun which will slightly soften the pre-preg and make it more tacky.
@@easycompositestv is that the only way ? i tried doing the way you told me but i had to heat up the carbon fiber real good for it to bend good
HI
I would like to build a canister from carbon fibre. Essentially a 'bucket' for want of a easier to understand term. I want this to be double 'A' sided though as the inside needs to seal with o-rings and the outside is cosmetic. The canister needs to parallel sides, or to within a gnat's cock.
I am thinking about how to remove the male plug that will form the inside of the 'bucket' and am wondering how to remove this. Have you ever come across people doing this with a solid mandrel and what would your thoughts be about how to do this? I was thinking of using room temp cure resin around an Acetal male plug then once cured popping it in the freezer. The CTE of Acetal would shrink it by .7MM over the 170mm diameter. In your experience would this be enough to be able to remove the plug?
Hi Jools, interesting conundrum. Exploiting differential CTE is definitely a good way to deal with extraction of parallel mandrels. Acetal's CTE doesn't really offer much difference from the cured composite and I'm not sure that 0.77mm (which sounds about right) combined with the nature of the release from acetal would be sufficient. It might be though! Another option would be a steel mandrel which you could wrap prepreg around, cure it elevated temperature and then extract at room temperature (or freezer temperature, if you need even more contraction). This is how carbon fibre tubes are made (they don't need cooling sub-ambient). This would give you quite a bit more difference in CTE between the two materials and therefore more 'release'.
Easy Composites Ltd does this give good repeatability on the final part. My worry for that was, and it’s based purely on guess work, was that as the steel expanded and the temp rose might the finished part be slightly different in size? For production runs to o-ring tolerances this would cause problems.
curing is insanely long though :D 18 hours initial cure, 19 hours post cure, that's absolute insane amount of curing :D but i am assuming this mould wont be destroyed easy , how many pulls it might give?
Would also like to know this
Hi Tan, actually, it’s pretty typical for the initial cure of a prepreg mould to be done ‘slow and low’ over a very long period of time. As explained in the video this is to minimise distortion of the pattern. The pattern is certainly not damaged by the process and can be used again if you need to make another mould. And of course, the mould that you make in this process can be used thousands of times, on a much faster cure cycle.
Hi Tom, hopefully just answered you question in my reply to Tan.
is this green material called prolab?
Prolab is PU based. The EP700 is epoxy based. You need epoxy based model boards as PU has a strange cure inhibition effect with many epoxy based pre-pregs where as the pre-pregs cure fine on epoxy tooling board.
Dont they make room temperature pre preg carbon now?
Room temperature prepregs just mean that you can store them at room temperature but this doesn't really work for us as a concept. To be storable at room temperature (let's say 20-25'C) it's near impossible to have a prepreg that can then be cured at the lower end of the temperature scale, example the 70'C we use here because any prepreg that will flow and cure at 70'C will have a finite 'out--life' at 20-25'C. If you need to cure at a higher temperature then you'll encounter more expansion from your pattern and lose accuracy. There's a lot of products now on the prepreg market that promise a lot but don't deliver. The prepregs and processes we demonstrate really do what they're supposed to and there's a huge amount of work that's gone into making this the case.
No gel coat needed?
Correct, no gelcoat needed. The special surface ply actually has a filled resin-rich layer which works like a gelcoat and provides the gloss black surface you can see on the finished mould.
what if i do not want it to be plain black, what if i want to see the fibers, how do i do that?
In this tutorial we're demonstrating how to make a prepreg carbon fibre *mould*, not the part itself. The tooling prepreg we use in this video needs its thick resin layer (which is black) in order to have a slightly polishable surface that's better for tooling (moulds).
The piece we've made by the end of this tutorial is a mould that in the *next* tutorial we will show you how to make the carbon fibre part, again using prepreg carbon fibre - however the carbon fibre we use to make the part will not be pigmented and will have the usual carbon fibre appearance. If you look at the very end of this tutorial, you can see the the carbon fibre part that will feature in the next video.
Depending on the pre-preg system, you'll see the fibres anyway ;-). I naver haven't been able to. Sometime you won't on glass systems... and I've never used or heard of glass/scrim being used in LTM! (maybe in non-motorsport applications?). 200gsm 2x2 does the trick every time.
One "important" question: Why make a mold out of expensive carbon fibre? Why not just fibre glass? For a mold I would think, it is enought. You will propably say, it is much more simple to get into the sharp corners. What about a mold, where this is just filled with resin? Resin is less stable, but in my experience it is yet very very strong, so it should work perfectly. Also there are ways to get glass fibre into the nucks and crannies (Is this, how it's spelled?). So please tell me, what am I missing??? Do I get something wrong here?
These moulds are made from tooling pre-pregs using carbon fibre for durability and especially the low Co-efficient of thermal expansion offered by using a carbon fibre matrix which will match the parts likely to be made in it. This reduces the chance of warping and distortion during the cure process.
Sooooo, what was that mold for?
It is a generic engine cover plate design rather than from a specific part.
@@easycompositestv Why make the mold from carbon fiber?
Gibt es in deutsch?
I love your channel but i am french so i dont understand All so can you add french subtitle please or just writen english subtitle to help us thanks
Yes, we'll certainly be doing this. We'll add the English captions in the next week or so. We do this for all our videos, we're just running a little behind on these new ones!
Easy Composites Ltd thanks
500th like!!!! Maybe you can send me a starter kit !😁
no!
How about making a split mould? Polypropylene as unimould?
Hey Wyn, hmmm, not really. When you're making a prepreg mould like this you really need the pattern to be a sturdy thing - you'll be laminating quite hard against it and also vacuum bagging against it and so temporary barriers (wiht filleting wax etc) are not really an option. If you're making a split mould and you're starting from a CNC machined pattern then of course you can design and machine the mould to include the flanges already but if you are starting from and original part and need to add temporary barriers to make your splits then your options are to either take a quick 'splash mould' off the part and barriers and then use the splash mould to make a splash part (which would now include the flanges) which you could then use to take the prepreg mould off - or you could use our high temperature epoxy tooling system instead. We have a video of that process on this page: www.easycomposites.co.uk/#!/resin-gel-silicone-adhesive/epoxy-gelcoat/EG160-high-temperature-epoxy-tooling-gel-coat.html
Yes, but it's best to minimize the number of moulds for a component, as they can be a bitch to trim and bolt together, especially when fixings are in close-proximity. Only use for multiple-mould tooling based on undercuts. For example, an F1 front-wing "turning vane" will comprise 3 separate moulds; one per side, and a ~2mm rebated "cap" to close over the fixing-flange. Think of a "T" shaped x-section.
Which of your prepreg carbon fibers is most suitable for this kind of application: th-cam.com/video/PGGiuaQwcd8/w-d-xo.html In the video there, Christian mentioned that their prepreg is made of a special mix of resins that will withstand high temperatures. Thank you.
XPREG®XC130 is our autoclave-cure toughened epoxy prepreg that would be suitable for applications like the wheels you linked to. Generally a wheel would not be a specifically high temperature application. There will be radiated heat from the brake discs but there is also plenty of cooling from airflow so I would not generally think that they would need to have a particularly high Tg resin system. The standard XC130 prepregs all use 'high strength' fibre and are at the top-end of the performance spectrum for conventional carbon fibre prepregs. www.easycomposites.co.uk/#!/prepreg/component-prepregs/xpreg-xc130-22-twill-210g-prepreg-carbon-fibre.html
same with XPREG® XC110? Would it be possible to make something as strong and reliable as a rim from "out of autoclave"?
For the most critical structural applications, such as a supercar wheel, it would be recommended to use an autoclave because this will ensure minimum void content however with proper technique (including debulks every few layers) then it would be possible to use an out-of-autoclave process (i.e. the XC110 system). It's worth pointing out that the XC110 does have a slightly lower Tg (110'C vs 130'C of the XC130 system).
5:50 “conventional bag” = envelope bag
In this video, we do use an envelope bag but in context, we just mean normal vacuum bagging film as opposed to the format of the bag itself. With a wide enough flange, you could opt to just bag the part onto the mould but for a small part like this, envelope bagging is definitely more straightforward.
Better make a negative mold.
Vietsus 🇻🇳
ผมชอบงานของคุณมากครับผมอยากเรียนรู้เกี่ยวกับงาน carbon
Thanks, we have a variety of videos that should provide an introduction to lots of processes. Of course, if there's anything that we haven't covered or you have further questions please email technical@easycomposites.com
It feels wrong to put masking tape over release agent. Needs to be the the other way around. Finish with masks and only apply release agent when everything is ready for laying
Disagree. It might feel wrong to you but it's the correct way to do it. Masking tape doesn't stick to the release agent surface at all, it removes with no trace whatsoever and - as you can see in the video - the mould will fall off the pattern just fine. If you put the masking tape onto the pattern before you've applied release agent then it will stick and will leave traces of the adhesive on the pattern which could contaminate the release agent when you apply it. That said, each to his own!
I agree, and have never heard of it being the result of a scrapper
Hi
Why not just print out sections that you need to cut? I mean, you do have a CAD model of the green pattern I assume, just unwrap faces and print them out and then use that to precisely cut the carbon fiber pieces.
Yep, you can totally do this. To do it right it's slightly more complicated than a simple 'unwrap' because of the way that a woven fabric will distort and comform. There is a plug-in for Fusion360 which understands the complex way in which woven fabrics 'drape' and so can do all the distortion compensation. For a small, simple mould like we made in this video it'm much quicker to just do what we did here rather than do the unwrap modelling and then set up with a drag knife on a CNC machine but for larger or more complex moulds it can become worthwhile.
Easy Composites Ltd, would you mind sharing a link to the Fusion 360 plug-in?
Sure, the plug-in is www.exactflat.com/
Yes, but depends on m/c capacity. If no CNC capacity, or for one-offs, it is done by hand anyway, but then it's best to see the whole process through, as arguments usually occur because Lamintor "A" cuts a template, goes home, then Laminator "B" picks up the job, and spends the rest of the shift moaning about how shit Laminator A's templates are.
Cool, could you prepregnate anything? Like Potassium Bromate w/ rubber or pottasium bromate w/ paraffin?
Thank you.
God bless, Revelation 21:4
Well, technically you could pre-impregnate anything with anything but if you want to use the resulting material as an elevated temperature cure prepreg for composites then really you're looking at impregnated traditional reinforcements with a limited number of resin systems (epoxy, phenolic etc.).
Thanks. What has the highest energy, solid fuel and solid oxidizer that can be pre-impregnated when introduced w/ a heat source? Thank you.
Great tutorials!!keep on posting!