Fibreglass : Mold and Enclosure Making : How To and How Not To

rosco · January 30, 2020, 12:49am

Haha. Yup. As soon as I got the part out of the mould and saw it’s defects I immediately wanted to re-do it to fix the issues. Lessons learned.

ryansinatra · January 30, 2020, 5:01am

Yeah that looks real nice honestly

donta42 · January 30, 2020, 6:38am

Nice work!! Looks fantastic!! Keep posting new versions if you get around to making more

Titoxd1000 · February 5, 2020, 5:05am

Where did you get the vacuum connector? And have you managed to reuse a vac bag or use a new one each time?

rosco · February 5, 2020, 6:12am

Vac attachment. Made it with bolts washers and a 6mm barb fitting. Bought stuff from AliExpress but in hindsight the local gas fitting shop would be better.

Bags rip. I have used cheap AliExpress plastic and recently tried premium stuff from USA. Stretchlon 200, really stretchy pretty good…

bwahl602 · February 6, 2020, 10:10pm

Anyone have examples of what kind of contours standard bagging tube can handle and what requires the stretchlon 200?

I have both. About to attempt my first bagging setup skinning a 3D printed enclosure.

rosco · February 7, 2020, 12:52am

The stretchlon 200 is very stretchy. They quote 500% but that seems like a bit of an exaggeration. The standard bag film I have used aren’t too stretchy really, so I have used larger bags and allowed length for the bags to pull tight into all of the corners of the mould.
Also be aware that stetchlon can stick to epoxy. Last time I used it, I used it as a mould liner (release layer) with epoxy and CF directly onto it and there were a few areas where it didn’t peel off the part which was a pain to sand off afterwards. No idea why.
Good luck. Post pics.

iamasalmon · February 7, 2020, 1:37am

There are no mistakes in fiber reinforced plastic (FRP), only more sanding

very nice work, congrats

rosco · February 7, 2020, 8:08am

Comparison pics.
Stretchlon 200 and cheap vac bag film on same mould. Left a lot of loose material lap on the standard vac bag film cos it just doesn’t stretch the same. Stretchlon was taped on (pulled flat) and just a stretched to the mould shape.

glyphiks · March 7, 2020, 4:32am

I have started my next fibreglass enclosure quest…

Will hold a 10s6p and smart BMS, top box for mtb.

About to start making a buck for an ESC enclosure too.

I hope these can happen without too much trouble

Benjamin899 · March 7, 2020, 4:37am

Quite sharp corners? Gonna use alot of smaller pieces to cover it?

glyphiks · March 7, 2020, 4:41am

The corners are not sharp at all dude, big radius on the corners. It will definitely need to be made of pieces, but nothing crazy.

Benjamin899 · March 7, 2020, 4:44am

Cool. Post some pictures later.

Nomad · March 7, 2020, 5:00am

The draft looks good!

glyphiks · March 7, 2020, 6:09am

Finished shaping the bucks, and coated with polyester toolcoat to fill in any timber grain. Will need to fully sand these and then prep them to make female molds.