A near-perfect vacuum bag setup was nearly derailed by a batch of incorrect tubing discovered at the last moment. After an emergency tube swap late Sunday night, the infusion went ahead as planned—and the result was as close to textbook as it gets.
Layup dry laminate and infusion
The bag was perfect and the vacuum was almost perfect. Then, after pulling vacuum, I discovered I had a batch of wrong tubes. They looked identical to the ones I had used before, but these were pressed flat and essentially useless for an infusion job.
That was a serious disappointment. The infusion was planned for the next day (Monday), and I had even announced a “live show” on the F-boat forum via the webcam. Fortunately, a quick drive to fellow builder Bert Hofman solved the problem—he had enough proper tubing to help me out.
It was late Sunday evening (or more accurately: very early Monday morning) when all tubes were replaced. With that crisis handled, the infusion could finally go ahead as intended.
The video quality is not great and replacing it is still on my to-do list. For now, the photo gallery below documents the full layup and infusion sequence.
This photo gallery (42 images) shows the complete dry layup and vacuum infusion of the first main hull half: glass layup, peel ply and release film, RDM and plumbing, vacuum bagging, epoxy mixing, and the infusion run from first resin to final trim.
