6G Celicas Forums

Just ordered my first vacuum bagging equipment. Expect to see some kind of result from this stuff VERY soon.....like shortly after it comes in.

very nice! maybe i'll use the old old vaccum i have in my garage for giggles.

Ok, so I just tried a part. The vacuum bagging is going to work MARVELOUSLY, but.....

I need more stuff. Specifically, a couple of vacuum bag ports and some shutoff valves. I had ZERO luck trying to seal the bag after getting the vacuum on it. Had to scrap the process for the night, but I was trying to work a left side vent panel and it was forming beautifully with just my shop vac. With a real vacuum pump (or generator as I have a small compressor I can keep in the basement and dedicate to this) I should be able to really put this stuff to use. Ordering the check valve, bag ports, and some hose and a bleeder valve tomorrow so I may be working on this again next week. DEFINITELY more to come!

*Edit* Parts are ordered. Just ordered one check vavle for now. If this first couple of test pieces come out ok, I'll get more check valves and go into full swing production.

This post has been edited by Fastbird: Feb 12, 2009 - 11:19 PM

sweeet take pics of how you set things up!

Don't really have a "setup" per se. I went ghetto fabulous iwth last nights endeavour. Duct tape to seal the bag (Using Fibreglast vacuum tube, 24"wide) wet out the CF cloth, laid the release film, bleeder/breather, set it in the bag, shoved shop vac tube into bag wit bleeder/breather on both sides of that, sealed end, and flipped on. The problem I was having was that I couldn't remove the shop vac tube and keep enough vacuum to comfortably seal the bag.

So....I got the following:

1/2" Tubing:


Plastic Barb Fittings x 2 (didn't go metal because I can get them cheaper locally and am just testing the waters still):


Two way shutoff valve (I got the brass one because this is the bread and butter, if this doesn't work the bag doesn't stay sealed):


And two of these vacuum connectors:


If everything works out I"m going to grab a couple of extra shutoff valves so I can work on multiple pieces at once. I'm going to try a couple of pieces using my shop vac, and dependent on the results there I'll either stick with that or move to a air compressor run vacuum generator (since a good vacuum pump is dang expensive).

More to come!

One BIG positive side to this??? I'll be able to invest MUCH less time and resources into doing these parts, equating to a reduced end cost if someones wants something done.

awesome man.
cant wait to see the new results!

Slowly getting the vacuum bagging stuff working. Actually kept enough of a seal last night to let a part sit under vacuum all night. It STILL had vac on it this morning, but it was a bit leaky.

Going to look at the part when I get home this evening.

At this point, I've relegated to the fact that my shop vac will do the job, but is too freaking noisy to leave continually running (and it's probably not rated for that) for 8 hours while the cure happens. So.......rather than spend $400 on a dedicated (and noisy, 55dB) vacuum pump, I'm looking for an old but good refridgerator compressor as they work great as vacuum pumps and are quiet to boot!

Here's an update. I'm using a refrigerator compressor as a vacuum pump. Cheap, QUIET, and pulls insane vacuum (think 26-30 inches of mercury). As you can see from the pics, enough to jack up the left A/C vent I was testing on. Hopefully it'll come out flat tomorrow morning when I pull it out of the bag.

What you're seeing in the pics is NOT how you should do it. I simply wet the fabric, put on the item, and put in the bag. I'm trying something to see if I can't get a smooth finish to start with. The pics at the very bottom is how you should do it, with a release film and breather cloth. You can see how the breather cloth soaks up the excess resin, but this left a textured finish with the fiber weave which I didn't want. Once I get a vacuum regulator I should be able to control the vacuum without tearing up the parts (this was just a test piece) and if it's ruined, lesson learned. Anyway, on to the pics!

THe bagged vent:


The WARPED vent:


The pump.


How it should be done. These didn't have enough vacuum pulled with the shop vac, so that may have played into the textured finish. Whoopsie.

And as of this morning, the fridge pump was still purring away, pulling crazy vacuum. So much so that it was pulling the bagging material out from under the tacky tape. Yup.....need a regulator/bleeder valve.

But, provided the warping in the part isn't permanent, I should have an easily finishable part after some trimming, and light finishing work.

Something I"m going to try is putting the part on either a stiff foam block so the mounting tabs dig into it without bending, or using riser blocks on parts that have big enough sections to sit on.

nice work!

Dude - awesome!

I'm actually VERY excited about how well the fridge pump worked. For $80 it was a tremendous investment. It's so quiet that I couldn't hear it in the back of my basement while my wife and I were 30 feet away around the corner watching TV.

So with your current setup; how big of an object can you "cover" with CFsheets?

Hard to say. How big are you thinking?

I was thinking a few random peices of exterior panels... like the rear license plate panel, and the triangles from the rear view mirrors (the peices in between the door and mirror).

What do you think?

I think both of those would be no problemo. That license plate panel isn't very big, and the mirror pieces would probably be pretty easy.

can u wrap my car?

Depends on what you want it wrapped in. CF is off the list. Duct tape, saran wrap, and toilet paper are all in though.

Sean this is awesome! I'm really looking forward to you being able to do this for us all! Definitely keep at least me updated, let me know when you're ready! I'm down for this!

I must be a retard because i still dont understand how this works lol