FINALLY! The time for more pictures has come!
As was mentioned before, a small amount of draft was incorporated into the tooling, and we made an actual part with 32 plies of carbon prepreg. On to the pics!
32 plies of carbon cut to pattern - this takes FOREVER to do by hand
Prepreg laid up on the tooling
Part and process materials after autoclaving. Green is the vacuum bag material and the white is a cotton bleeder cloth.
Processing materials removed, caul plates visible (these were used to allow for a smooth surface texture)
Caul plates removed: Success!
Part removed from tooling with the use of the air fitting that was welded to the inside of the tooling. This allowed for one-person removal of the part.
The excess still needs to be trimmed to make it fit and look pretty.
Close up of surface finish on the front face
Currently the part is being trimmed with a cutoff wheel to prevent delamination and drilled to mount the winch and truck mounts. This thing is SOLID! I can stand on it and there is absolutely no deflection in the part.
After trimming part of the excess material, part thickness was measured to be 0.28 to 0.30 inches, which is slightly more than the planned 0.25, but it is ok for this part. All in all a successful weekend! I also was offered a composites job in WV, so also be on the lookout for an FJ Cruiser in the future...
Coming soon: Whole unit tensile testing!