gbrettin

Ok guys! I had a cool side quest I wanted to share. Someone contacted me on IG and wanted a carbon fiber emblem for their car. I felt like this was the perfect next step working with carbon fiber specifically for doing vacuum bagging techniques. The molding process was pretty smooth because I had already ran through that for my cubby mount. Less was more for the mold and I made the molds pretty small to make the bagging process better. The mold its self came out really great! I can f' up the carbon process and start over as many times as I want. Of which, I totally messed up my first bagging.

I have really top notch vacuum supplies and a 1,200 vacuum pump... but, I wanted to take a chance doing a cheaper method using a Food Saver. It looked like the vacuum process initially worked well because I had packed in chop strand carbon into the tight areas to prevent bridging. I attempted to do a wet layup combo with vacuum but it failed. The bag lost vacuum twice on the A side of the emblem which I think really did me in.

That all being said, I am NOT mad one bit. As stated, the mold is beautiful and I can make more attempts. The weave laid down all whack due to the wet layup. I'll specifically need to do a vacuum infusion on this. Additionally I am going to use PVA (liquid plastic) inside the mold so that it releases a bit easier.

FYI, I was working on a lot of this concurrent with other parts of my car. There's a lot of stop and go with-in this process.