: Well, I took the leap into the wide world of vacuum bagging on Friday night.
: I'm now not only a KBbbs addict, I'm also a vacuum bagging addict. At
: first, I used my shop vac, but I later borrowed a vacuum pump from a
: friend on Saturday. (I was worried about burning up my shop vac motor.)

: I carved the blade mold from a piece of EPS (extruded polystyrene) building
: foam (Dow Blue board/OC Pink Board) and then covered it with glass. I used
: glass and phenolic microballoons to fair it out. (This has taken a few
: months as it wasn't a top priority)

: I then waxed the mold and covered the waxed form with PVA. When the PVA
: dried, I brushed on epoxy, laid on a piece of fabric, and then 2-4 layers
: of biaxial cloth. I laid on more toward the tip, because that area
: receives the most abuse, and it also spans out beyond the end of the
: shaft.

: I was able to keep the resin content down around the weight of the cloth, so
: the blades aren't resin heavy, and the cloth in the layup looks really
: cool!!

: After wetting out with resin, I covered the wet glass with a sheet of saran
: wrap. I put the covered, glassed mold in a heavy clear bag with a couple
: old T-shirts for breathers along the sides and bottom of the form. I stuck
: the vacuum cleaner hose in against the t-shirts and drew the bag around
: the hose. The vacuum sucked the air out of the bag in no time, and removed
: the internal pressure from the bag. Atmospheric pressure began pressing in
: on the outside of the bag, forcing air bubbles toward the sides of the
: form where the air was sucked through the "breather" t-shirts.

: I'm aware that using a directly applied peeler ply (nylon microfiber) and a
: breather ply over that would let me suck the excess resin out of the
: laminate, but I didn't have any scraps of nylon on hand. That would
: probably also have required making vacuum ports in the bag, and I wasn't
: feeling quite that ambitious!!

: I heated the laminate through the bag with my wife's hair dryer (sorry
: honey!) so the epoxy kicked off after about 15 minutes and I was able to
: turn off the shop vac. I left the blade on the form and in plastic for
: another few hours to more fully cure, and then stripped it off the
: form--worked great! I trimmed the blade to shape, and I'll mount them on
: my bird's mouth shafts tomorrow or Tuesday night. (Just in the nick of
: time for R2K). Nothing like an 11th hour vacuum bagging effort before a
: Rendezvous, eh Grant?

: Photos to come.

: Shawn

Guess some carbon fiber blades should be next. I would be happy to supply said carbon fiber and S-glass for "experimentation".

have fun, Pete czerpak albany, NY