Rolf wrote :
I am not certain infusion results in stronger/lighter parts when compared to wet layup with vacuum. I think infusion uses more resin to fill all voids in the foam surface, but have not had the opportunity to compare weights.
I think I wrote earlier that several other builders found that the old method resulted in better quality boats and have disgarted infusion as a result. Infusion did not result in lighter hulls. It had increased the risk of warranty issues because of insufficient wetting out of the laminate in remote area's. These builders tend to make a very large portions of quality lightweight hulls. Maybe they didn't try hard enough to make it work, that is possible. But rumour has it in the A-cat cirquit that also Nacra has reverted back to the old technology for their A2 catamaran. For very much the same reasons. However the last claim is a single source claim so I categorize it as less dependent.
It seems that infusion is mainly advantageous in the way of cleaning up your production line and satisfying more strickt environmental regulations. In the way of quality of the laminate it doesn't seem to be better then the old vacuum bag techniques. It certainly doesn't appear to be better at all autoclave techniques with manual layup.
Wouter
