Quote Originally Posted by james...venom View Post
what resin would you recommend? im still pondering
Definitely epoxy laminating resin. It's more pricey but don't even think of using any anything else for combat. On paper it's brittle, but it has cross-linking properties with some but not all fibres. Kevlar and carbon, are both suitable. Much stronger than vinyl-based or basic fibre-glass material.

Spend money on a good hardener. Some of them have UV protection too ((UV degrades epoxy) and that's handy if you don't want to paint it.

You very much need to do it under vacuum-pressure (vacuum-bag kits) and I'm not sure I can recommend using pure kevlar for fight-bots (am still looking into this) but kevlar has no structural strength, only resistance to penetration and dispersion of forces. ie, you could end-up with the resin cracking from blunt-force trauma despite a weapon not actually getting through the stuff (think wire-re-enforced glass) Which is why I am thinking carbon-fibre/kevlar blend might be a better option anyway.

Carbon is actually slightly heavier than kevlar, but the added strength aught to mean you could include a core material/filler and get a thicker, lighter and yet stronger shell overall. (In theory!)



I am looking into polycarbonate composites which I thought sounded like a great idea but not too much luck so-far. Maybe Polycarb can be the core material if that plan turns out to be a good'un.