how come it's faster?

you just heat the material in an oven, take it out of the oven and form it, let it cool

the fiberglass is pre-impregnated with polypropylene or other plastics

so it's just a sheet of plastic/fiberglass

ahh cool

the fiberglass layup you're referring to is good too but it's used for diff purposes

these are just trim panels that don't need much structural strength

i came across it for windmill blades

funny enough we apparently had a project for windmill blades a while back

before i worked here

the tools are the biggest we've ever made

hah, can you still put that in an oven to do thermoforming?

yes

seems kinda big

it is

we specialize in huge parts that would otherwise be extremely expensive to make

hows that done?

we have a real big oven

lol

alright

and our tools are much lighter weight and require way less overhead than typical of compression tools

what are the dimensions of that oven?

i think width wise we've got like 12 feet

some of our customer's parts are wider than our oven so we actually overlap pieces sometimes to make it work

big oven

incase of f.e. those windmill blades, do you fit the entire part in at once?

or is the oven moved along it length wise or something?

can't remember what they did for those

okok

i think they scrapped the tools

but they were very large

cause length seems like the biggest issue there :P

like 15 feet by 8 feet or something

and even then they might have been only a portion of the blade

not sure

project never got off the ground

ok

yeah in sections maybe

we currently make dome pieces for a photo dome

same kind of material?