Morning Ivan - So what are you aiming at? Industry information tells us that 70%Vf is about the top figure and you have achieved that. Are you chasing 90%? Industry has settled on 70%Vf for a reason. One of these is scaling. You maybe able to work hard and get your 1000ml sample up higher but then, will it scale and get you the result with a 150kg batch? You can't mix big batches as well as small batches unless you have big equipment. The Basetek company have videos of hugh mixers and graders making very large batches. They would happily make EG at higher Vf as the gravel is cheaper then the resin. The other thing is that by back calculating from their data they are under filling the resin. Perhaps that's the trade off. They are happy to make a sponge vs a solid to save $$$ on the resin. From my composites experience using stitched cloth and UD fibres which are already in a state of high order and using 6 atms pressure in an autoclave we don't get past 60%Vf easily. So why not be happy with 70%Vf and move forward? Back to scaling. Boats have to be surveyed and they use test panels for the engineering certification. They are 600x600mm usually. I have been making these and helping boat builders make these for 30 years. Its always a concern that we make a 20m plus boat using tonnes of material based on a one off small panel. Over the years I have figured out how to make panels very well. I can instruct builders to lay cloth a particular way, use vacuum a particular way, build the bag like this not like that etc. This results in exceptional good figures. But I don't like doing that because it does not scale to the boat. You can't scale all of those hints into a big boat build easily. Maybe same with your samples. So what are you aiming at in terms of Vf and your E?
Did you see the Koehler article I attached to the EG thread? may help in your research... Peter