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Although it's very common for composite components to be painted or use a pigmented gelcoat, it is increasingly common for them to be clear-coated or left unpainted, in which case the cosmetic appearance of a particular reinforcement can be important. This is of course particularly true for reinforcements designed specifically to be cosmetic or decorative surface plies but can be equally important when considering alternative reinforcements, such as natural fibre reinforcements or hybrid fabrics designed primarily for their structural performance, as a visible surface ply.
Anyone who has worked with composite materials however will know how much their appearance can change once they are wetted-out with resin and turned into a cured laminate. In order to avoid disappoint, remove the guesswork and try to help customers make the right choice when considering a composite reinforcement as a cosmetic surface ply, Easy Composites' R&D team have been hard at work creating cured laminate samples of as many of our reinforcements as possible. These cured laminate samples have then been photographed alongside the original dry reinforcements in order to clearly show the before-and-after of what each reinforcement will look like as the visible surface of a finished component.
All samples were created by resin infusion against a release coated glass surface. They were infused using IN2 Epoxy Infusion Resin with no gelcoat or additional finishing.
We will continue to create cured laminate samples and add images of them to new reinforcements as we add them to the range as yet another way that we try to take the guesswork out of composites and help customers to achieve success with their projects!
Generally, it can be seen that most reinforcements look significantly darker once they are wetted out with resin (much like hair looks darker when it's wet) but this change affects some fibre types more than others. This is particularly true of the decorative hybrid fabrics where the coloured fibres are more subtle in the cured laminate.
Natural fibre reinforcements like flax can be seen to go significantly darker when they are wetted out.
If you’re looking for a white fibre that stays white once wetted out, the white Innegra used in our carbon/Innegra hybrid stays bright white in the cured laminate.
Images of cured laminate samples can be found in the additional images of most reinforcements on our website but if a reinforcement that you’re interested in using as a surface ply does not have a cured sample image, please add your suggestions or comments below and we’ll do our best to add them as quickly as possible.
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Please share any questions or comments you may have about this video tutorial.
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