Seen a nice '34 Ford coupe the other day and thought maybe it was fiber gl***. Turns out it was made with infusion process. Any one familar with this stuff?
Its called resin infusion molding, pretty much the fibergl*** plys are layed up in a mold then put under a vacuum. Once its under a vacuum resin is ****ed it the mold "inpregnating" the fibergl***. pretty neat process. Once the required resin is pushed into the mold they cure, either under heat lamp, a heat blanket, or throw in it in a autoclave. Knock it out of the mold and machine it to size.
Infusion is very close to the best manufacturing process you can use for composite manufacturing. It probably is still fibergl***, infusion is just the process used to create the part. If they've done an accurate job buiding the tooling (molds, to those of you who don't know any better) this would be the body to buy. I don't know of any rod body outfit's doing an infusion processs, so this is interesting to me. Rossco is close in his process ***esment. They probably heat cure it somehow, but depending on the resin system, it can room cure also. I very seriously doubt they autoclave it, which is gennerally reserved of Indy/F1 car tubs, and aerospace structural components. It would be total overkill for rod bodies, and is very expensive. I've had 30+ years in advanced aerospace composites, both structures and tooling, and still build some interesting automotive and aerospace stuff in my own company. if you remember a couple of years ago NHRA doing a rule revision becuase of lightweight engine components, that was because of us. We were building carbon fiber internal engine components for pro stock cars. Still have some stuff on them; right out in the open, that tech hasn't caught in six years.
i think it's also called resin transfer or RTS. The parts come out a uniform thockness and finished on both sides.
As the price of resin goes up, the cost of expensive molds becomes affordable, as you use less resin. Either way it still costs the same, but the bagged and vacuumed parts will be lighter. This is the way they make airplanes and most carbon fiber products. There's no slopping on resin with a paint brush and a roller in the back woods of Arkansas. It all gets back to the mold though. **** is ****.
Mike Vokey's Cutting Edge has been using this process for a dozen years or more making many different rod bodies. This is what I got from a Google search: Cutting Edge Technologies Inc Albany, PE C0B 1A0 Canada (902) 437-6607
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