Thu Jul 02 2020

Center arm rest lid

So today was layup day! I waxed the mold and sprayed it with mold release, prepped all the materials...

...and cut a piece of glass suitable to layup four layers. I originally thought I was going to be doing five layers, so I cut a bit too much glass, but double checked my plan and realized it was only four.

Here's the fist layer ready to be smoothed on.

I attempted to just smooth the fabric around the corners, but this mold is just too square-ish and too deep for the fabric to smoothly flex around the corners. I ended up pulling off this layer and throwing it away.

So, for the second layer, I reverted back to cutting out the corners and folding tabs around the corners.

When laying up the third layer, I found that the spikey bits from the second layer prevented the third layer from going around the corners smoothly. I peeled both of these layers off and threw them away.

So, on the fourth layer, I decided to angle teh cuts back to prevent spikey ends from interfering with subsequent layers.

Here's how the corners worked out.

Unfortunately, I angled this corner back a bit too much. No worries...the gap is below the useful portion of the part, and there will be more layers anyway.

So, by this point the epoxy was beginning to gel up in the heat, so that was the end of the layup for today. I vacuum bagged it to leave it to cure overnight.