Fiberglass layup tools

These tools will stand up to resins and acetone without dissolving. Click on an image below to browse the categories below and find all of the supplies and tools you need for your project. Spray gel coat, PVA, primers, and more. Fibre Glast professional-grade spray guns won't let resin set up in the gun.

Choose from a selection of guns, accessories, and replacement parts to keep your spray guns working properly for many projects to come. Scissors, cutting tools, and fabric aids specially selected form composite work minimize prep time and wasted materials. All items are in stock for same day shipment. Perma-Grit tools deliver clean edges, smooth surfaces and are renowned for their usability with composite laminates.

Protect your composite with a quality, high-gloss finish. You supply the elbow grease, Fibre Glast supplies the products for a first-class, final touch! Make the simplest choice a smart choice. Choose quality brushes and supplies that suit your composite project—and avoid headaches right from the start! Turn your composite into a high-performance part. Fiberglass rollers and squeegees are critical for saturating fabric, eliminating air and working out excess resin.

Take the time to examine this category for the tools that are best suited for your project. Mixing sets and starter kits come with all of the supplies for mixing, handling, and applying resin for your composite. Embedded resistance wiring or other electrical means are not the only way to integrally heat tooling. Tooling with built-in ducts that heat and cool using forced air has been used in the aerospace industry for decades. The wind industry has infused layups in heated molds for years, commonly using fluid conduits.

These tooling approaches can use a variety of media oil, water or metal-based fluids to impart temperature control to heat thin, lightweight tooling shells, and they are less costly than the conventional metal tools used in RTM. Another effective approach, offered by Regloplas Corp. Gallen, Switzerland and St. Joseph, Mich. The pressurized-water unit heats the tool directly. Therefore, the autoclave is used primarily to provide the pressure that consolidates the layup.

As a result, the overall energy expenditure during cure is typically much reduced. Heated fluid systems for plumbed tools are also offered by Single Temperature Controls Inc. Charlotte, N. Plainfield, Conn. In recent years, a variety of low-cost modeling materials that maintain dimensional stability at higher temperatures have made inroads into traditional toolmaking.

A growing trend is the use of additive manufacturing 3D printing to rapidly create prototype tooling, fixtures and jigs and even layup tools for composite parts , which enable faster design cycles.

The growth of larger and more robust 3D printing infrastructure as well as higher-temperature resins and carbon fiber reinforcement will accelerate this trend. No matter the tooling material, the importance of mold release agents cannot be over-emphasized. For open molding, most releases are either waxes or are based on polymer chemistry.

In some cases, release papers are applied to the mold. Of these, most are polymers in solvent-based carrier solutions, such as an aliphatic hydrocarbon blend. Some manufacturers prefer naphtha-based releases, which have longer shelf lives and faster evaporation rates and are considered to be less damaging to composite tool surfaces.

Increasingly strict emissions regulations have encouraged development of water-based releases, which produce no volatile organic compounds VOCs and clean up more easily, with less risk of skin irritation. Semi-permanent polymer mold release systems enable multiple parts to be molded and released with a single application, in contrast to paste waxes, which need to be reapplied for each part.

Semi-permanent releases — preferred for better control over VOC emissions — are formulated specifically to meet the needs of resin transfer molding RTM and other closed mold processes.

Internal release formulations are required for pultrusion processing because the part is pulled continuously through the die, allowing no opportunity for intermittent application of external releases to the die surface.

In terms of tooling fixtures, typically a major expense for very large composite parts that require post-cure trimming or drilling, many approaches are possible, including aluminum or steel structures that hold a part in place for post-cure CNC machining.

Caledonia, Mich. Janicki has developed composite trim and drill fixture production techniques that save cost vs.

In contrast to large metal structures, Janicki achieves the same tolerances using its low-cost tooling technology — wood structure with machined putty and fiberglass — but at a much lower cost. Thus, the means to make the fixture is paid for in the tool fabrication, which results in significant savings. Welcome to the online SourceBook, the counterpart to CompositesWorld's annually published print SourceBook composites industry buyer's guide.

X1 Layup tools are produced in the United States and without the waste of milling swarf or international shipping logistics. Infiltrated sand from ExOne is a cost-effective tooling solution with fast turnarounds. Our innovative sand binder jetting systems create unique geometries for innovative tooling that allows you to iterate quickly and test functional prototypes to improve products that get to market faster and cheaper. As a full-service tooling provider, ExOne works with customers every step of the way from tool design guidelines to printing and coating all the way through quality control.