We are surrounded by composites almost all day long, on board the performance saying yacht - lots of carbon (dust) and epoxy resins especially during the actual refit period. Don't get us wrong, we love carbon and composites and as you can see in our blog posts, we like to produce our own parts out of carbon and/or fiberglass. But this time we went onto unknown grounds for us - Bio-composites.
Our friend Erwan got us "hooked" up and there was no way around, we had to try it ourself. The idea of using natural fibers for a composite structure was just too appealing for DIY and we love the result.
The project for our first application of bio-composites was quickly found. We needed new little L-shape brackets to mount inside the galley cupboard to keep all plates and bowls in place. On board a boat, each equipment needs its fixed space and even if we are sailing in comfort, we don't want to have the plates move around. The original brackets were made out of teak wood but as they where glued together, they sometimes break in the glue joint.
The idea is to make new brackets in a sandwich construction out of cork for the core and outer skins made of two layers of linen on each side. First step was to produce a mould to give the brackets the correct shape. The mould was made out of plywood and gelcoat to have a smooth finish and a airtight mould surface.
For our other custom composite projects we often use wet-layout of the fibers with a vacuum pump hooked up or not, depending on the necessary strength to achieve. This way of manufacturing is not possible with the natural fibers. Logic concluding - infusion it is... Our first infusion of bio composite under Erwan's direction.
Once the mould was ready and we got the necessary supplies - Erwan help us with the set up of the fabrics, supplies, vacuum bagging and calculation of the necessary quantity of resin for the cork/linen combination. He is doing lots of research and project of different Bio-composites and it's great to learn from the best...
For the infusion, we have used special bio two component epoxy resin from Sicomin that's more "green" - Infu Green. According to the supplier, this "Epoxy resin is produced with about 38 % of carbon from plant origin and has a lower environmental impact than standard Epoxy systems." If going bio-composites, let's go as far as the technology allows.
By the way Sicomin also supplies the linen tissue, they have a whole range of different fabrics. Our 4mm cork for the sandwich core comes from a local home-supply shop as by chance it was of the correct thickness.
After a successful infusion and a full night of vacuum for curing - we were very exited when it was time to de-mould. Our infusion was a success and the result is great - pretty stiff and super light - we love it.
The following steps are to cut the brackets square and into different sizes so they can hold our plates in place. We also drilled two mounting holes for small screws to mount them.
For the finish we applied several layers of resin and clear coat for a shiny finish. Not easy to place them upright to be able to spray paint the clear coat. How do you like our "prep" work - lots of research and testing before we found a way (we call that the "little soldiers arrangement").
We absolute love the result and the style of our first Bio-composite DIY project and we will definitively do more of them. The little L-shape bracket are just the beginning.
After this first test, we will explore this composite options for bigger projects like a bio-composite fender for the CB750 Four or body parts and the dashboard of Yasmine our 2CV. This gonna look just super sexy and very unique...
But not only the look also the stiffness and the weight saving aspects are great for those future projects. Lots of options and possibilities for DIY - we are going to "dust it"...
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