Sunday, April 6, 2008

Curing floats at 50 celsius

First I need to cure floats. The epoxy will get stronger if temperature is raised. My Ampreg 22 cures fully if temp. is raised to 50 C. in 14 hours, or 70 C. in 5 hours. So if the high level can be reach it is cheaper to do this!

But to get to even 50 C was difficult for me. I made a tent from alu. tubes and plastic and tried to insulate as well as possible. Next time I will prepare this better as insulation is key. I used a 9 kW electric fan heater placed at one end, and an 200 mm air duct from the other end, to return air back into the heater. This way the heat was evenly distributed.




After 14 hours at 50 C they were finally done.

Lesson learned:
Do this before fairing.
Insulate well.
Get an airdust or similar.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Keep up the good work.

MartinF said...

Thanks a lot. Do you have any specific interest in trimarans or just building in general.