Thanks Alex, that's very kind of you. We've said it before too, but we really enjoy making this content and sharing our passion and it being freely available is a key part of that.
Honestly, making this high quality of videos is a brilliant business strategy. In fields like this where it is hard to find good suppliers people often go with the first one that looks good, and man oh man you make it look good. I know multiple composite techs that all independently started following this channel and use your stuff for their own projects.
Thanks very much for this comment. It’s really nice to hear. When we’re out and about we do hear similar things from engineers, or uni techs/lecturers/students etc and it always reminds us how effective the combination of quality products supported by good training content can be.
I have 10 years professional experience in aerospace composites but I still enjoy each of your videos like I was discovering a new craft 😅 and then I buy tools and tooling material from you at work because they're you great and so are you !
Dear EasyComposites, thank you for all of your videos but most importantly your high quality products that we use to produce carbon fiber products. Serious stuff, amazing quality, fast shipping (we are in Italy) Thank you!❤
Thank you, that means a lot. We're really pleased that you're enjoying the content but, of course, our main business is making and supplying high quality composite materials so it's great to hear that you like the products and service!
Thanks, thanks interesting to hear. As it happens, our next series of videos will all be motorsports based so should be right ‘in your lane’ but we enjoy the production process too and so it’s nice to learn that it’s appreciated 😀.
I know, I always gush at your content and it is no different here. Your ability to succinctly summarize the technical contents, and process of making a structure are very inspiring.
This channel has gone from strength to strength! Wonderful editing of a truly fascinating story. The things I learned from this seem almost incidental.
Before I started following your channel I thought the whole process was too difficult, now I not only have the confidence to try doing composites for my next project, but most importantly, I also learnt a lot in general about the whole process and tools. That knowledge is universal and speaks to Pauls' great presentation skills and that the company prioritizes these videos where knowledge is shared freely very valuable.
My appreciation for this company is unrivaled. You guys sell amazing quality products at an amazing price, and follow it up with providing free education on entire composites processes. Unbelievable in the best way possible.
Myself and some family members made a boat 10 years ago - it was a small pontoon boat with fiberglass pontoons, and each pontoon had a VERY similar construction to this albeit with fiberglass. However, at the time there was NO resources like this available to the public and we essentially had to figure out most of it ourselves, from mold making to layup and construction. We laid up each pontoon by hand, which would take us about 30 hours. Wetting out that much fiberglass by hand is MISERABLE. In some ways, I'm amazed how good of a job we did, but I can't even imagine how much easier it would have been had your content been available at the time. All that to say, THANK YOU for making this content available and sharing what used to be very hard to learn, very specialized knowledge with the masses. This really make me want to try some new projects with the new information I now have. You have a gift for explaining this all in a very detailed yet easy to understand way and the production quality is excellent. Thanks again!!
Thanks for the comment, that’s really good to hear and thank you for the kind words on our content. Well done on getting stuck in, with your family, and figuring some of this out for yourselves those years ago… most people don’t!
Kudos to our new (ish)videographer and editor Ben Wiles for that. He did all the drone/gimbal shots, as well as the studio videography and editing. He’ll appreciate your appreciation!
just realized why i watch this channel. i grew up an 80's kid, middle house, middle of the street. my neighbour on the right worked in formula one, my neighbour on the left had his own fibreglass business, made most of the cars on fairground rides and half of the enemies on dr who. i don't do anything like that but maybe i could have!
my dad said: willy next door = super clever mechanic works for williams, john works harder than any welshman i ever met = deserves his company. neighbours said: your dad hardest working, honest scouser we ever met. i said: my dad told me how smart you are! how much sanding you do! but i'll be 40 before i listen!
never really said that but clearly i didn't listen either. messed around a bit. got a dead end job. got sacked. got a few more. got sacked. got in trouble. got smart. got my way out of trouble but easier if i listened to those three men as a kid though. this guy reminds me of my dad & neighbours.
You guys really turned your passion into your job, I love it! It’s very inspiring to see both your amazing subject knowledge and how much you enjoy what you are doing. Inspirational! 👍
If I could pick a favorite Easy Composite video, this would be it. I'm not sure if I can pick a favorite since I like so many of them so much. Thanks for another fantastic video.
WOW!! Years ago my dad was given a canoe by a neighbor who had no use for it anymore... It was big and had a nice wide beam, quite stable... But to big for him now that the kids left the nest. He gave it to my dad knowing that he took care of the cottages around the lake so that was the easiest way to get around. My dad left it at some house one day next to the shore and the following day it was gone!! Somebody nicked it!! If I could go back in time, get a mold of that canoe and make another one for my dad he would be over the moon!! That being said, if you have an old canoe, or if you find one that's no longer sea?!?? lake-worthy, then you can just use that to make a mold and give that old boat a new life!! There's probably some hardware and seats and stuff that can be salvaged to the new build!!
Really good video. However as an owner in the past of a boat with a balsa cores deck if the outer laminates get damaged you need to repair prompltly. A lot of racing yachts were built using balsa cores in the late 70s and 80s becasue of its strength but by the time our boat reached the age of 30 there was an awful lot of water trapped in the core in places.
¡¡¡I can translate this to Spanish and help you distribute it here in America and maybe Spain!!! Your channel has helped me to learn and I've been trying to work with the fibres, right now I'm building a motorcycle with a kevlar-carbon fibre weave, trying to apply what you show is. Sometimes, as I live in Venezuela and studying Law, it's been difficult for me to have the materials and all the tools but your teachings keep inspiring me and I keep doing!!! Thank you!!!!
It is videos and channels like this that make composite manufacturing a lot more fun. I find this channel as being the best and most inspiring of them all. Paul's way of presenting tops it all off. Great job. Thank you for all the work you put in this videos! The Easy Composite as a whole is a great place to get all the required materials for composite works. 🔝
This video shows a magnificent step up in your production values, from the wonderful outdoor introduction to the excellent and interesting camera work during the process. I particularly enjoyed the tracking time lapse shot and the 'moulds eye view' during the demoulding. You did a great job telling the story of the process, well done.
Imagine trying this by yourself having no clue, you could spend a lot of time, effort and money for scrapping your tryouts and never succeed. Now that we have these vids we know how to, thanks EC for this super usefull content!
That's the idea - we want to share our own knowledge and experience so that customers (and non-customers) make the very best use and have the best possible experiences with composite materials.
Thanks guys! Your channel is one of the most informative ones! Bravo! I can't stop admiring your accuracy and consistency! Please keep on making various videos! It would be funny if you one day start revealing the secrets of Formula 1! 😉Thanks again and wish you all the best!👍👍👍🙏
Thank you so much for sharing such a great video! You provided a really detailed step-by-step process with amazing production quality which is all much appreciated. Well done! 💚
Another advantage of end grain balsa, if it gets wet from a crack or a hole in the laminate, the water does not soak (and rot) through all the wood like it would if the grains were long
Great video. This explains a great many things that are worth noting. Having spent the weekend struggling with flax and LB2, I think it is clear that this technique through vacuum forming makes a lot of sense (I need to watch the smaller section on aluminium again!).
Flax tends to expand when wet laid which increases thickness and resin soak up which can make it harder to laminate. Certainly a vacuum bag based process will limit that.
The professionalism and depth of knowledge showcased in this video are truly refreshing. I'm particularly interested in learning more about the application of both loose and woven hemp bast fibers in conjunction with your epoxy. Could you share insights on scalable solutions and any testing that has been done? Looking forward to a deeper dive into these innovative materials!
I absolutely endorse to add 3% (or so) epoxidized castor oil in the resin part of the mixture. Back then I used Heloxy 505. It is a superior wetting agent for all sorts of natural fillers and fibers. Edit: we used Divac 2.2L dry sump pump (and a resin trap!!!) to keep the insides of the vacuum bag at 6 mbar for several hours, to remove the free water from the fillers/fibers. (with that heloxy additive and divac pump, that's how you will make a totally translucent glass fiber epoxy laminate)
First Lada was produced around 1970 and there are no composite panels on that car, nor were there any on following soviet era models to my knowledge. Possibly there were other soviet veichles where composite parts were used in. In general, possible benefits of such technological experiments in soviet union looked good only on paper and rarely reached the lives of common folk.
Great content as always !!! I would suggest you to make series of "common mistakes done by beginners" (practical mistake examples) when making composite parts with each laminating method (hand laminating, infusion, prepreg etc.). Eg. I would like to see tested side by side, how good and bad vacuum infusion affects mechanical part properties.
Huh, I guess you're not a Vampire, lol. I love your videos and this one's no different. Thank you for all the knowledge and can't wait to try one of these projects.
Wow! This video gave me enough reason to reconsider my next coming project! I love the slight translucent finish. I hope you can confirm, that the weight comparison with fiberglass is lighter. Is that really true? Wish to see more productvideo’s and product tutorials of these “more eco-friendly materials”. Ps could you show a quick video, on how translucent the finish of the canoe really is. Thanks
What an excellent presentation and project. Really great work by your team at Easy Composites. 👍 You've covered the high performance and low environmental impact composite options quite well but when you are approached by manufacturers looking to make composites at scale, where cost of materials must also be balanced, what kind of recommendations do you make in terms of materials and epoxy?
Hi Thomas, thanks for the feedback but the question is maybe a little too broad to answer helpfully. The nature of composites means that the details of a project matter a lot and might change our recommendations significantly. If you’ve got anything specific in mind, even if it’s just something you’re pondering, drop us a message; we’ll try to help 😀.
You guys are making some really incredible videos here. I've done composite work sporadically since I was a kid, but have been doing a lot of things wrong because there aren't really a lot of good sources for proper technique, and/or explaining when to use what fiber or epoxy, or how to use the vacuum bagging bits and bobs. I am somewhat curious what the margins look like on something like this canoe build? Obviously there's come capital wrapped up in the mould and tooling, but otherwise it seems like mostly consumables and time.
The material and resin cost depends on the size and layup of the specific canoe you build plus the consumable materials in the infusion as seen in the video.
We have a lot more motorsport based tutorials in the pipeline already but no immediate plans for a full monocoque, but it's always something that we've considered. If we did one, it would be for something a bit more realistic, like a single-seater, but the concepts and process would be the same.
@@easycompositestv Any step to building a full monocoque tub will be helpful, please do think about this! Also how is a carbon tub even made? A pipe skeleton and a carbon extra structure or just carbon? Thanks for the great techniques and demos!!!
wow, another fabulous video!! And great that the workshop is so close to the lake ;-) Question about the environmental impact of the fibre material: Can you comment on the total benefit of these natural materials? My assumption would have been, that for a standard part, the resin has a bigger impact than glass fibre.
Being a composite, both resin and fibre are relevant. Natural fibres are sustainably sourced and take less processing and energy to make a usable fibre compared to fibreglass or carbon. The bio resins replace petrochemical sourced parts with bio derived alternatives making the production more sustainable and with reduced energy usage during manufacture.
Well, if you’re struggling to get good results using any of our products make sure you contact us, we’re happy and pleased to help you get successful results.
@@easycompositestvwell I haven’t ordered from you only because of the shipping costs. I am in the US, California. But the cost of shipping may be well worth the advice. I am struggling with what seems a very simple application for a product I am developing. I am trying to tame plywood warping with composites. I have had more success with aircraft parts I am fabricating. It is a great medium.
Kind of want to see flax composite pushed to it's design limits, can you use pine tar resins and make it completely renewable? Would be a fabulous marriage of ancient traditions and modern day craftsmanship, of which this canoe is a fine example.
Lex Fridman's quest Neri Oxman just described a method how she can program silk worms to follow mold contours and wove arbitrary shapes. Silk worms also excrete resin-like substances of their own. Spray some more resin for water tightness and you have most Ecological canoe ever.
This was awesome and as soon as I find space to store it, I'm making one :) I just have one question: does the balsa core get fully infused with resin and if so, doesn't that cancel it's light weight?
No, the balsa is almost ‘closed cell’ in its behaviour and so its resin absorption is minimal. Resin fills the tiny gaps between the blocks and there is a small amount of resin permeation into the first 1mm or so of the balsa but that’s about it, so the core stays light.
This one required a single coat only. We do cover the coating process in more detail in some of our other tutorials. Check out the mouldless construction and skinning tutorials.
