Wildthing
Legendary member
@jonoashton - the more I land, the more I break, the more I build!
Simple, don't land
@jonoashton - the more I land, the more I break, the more I build!
Well it has been awhile, but I have been thinking about what to do next on this project - there are two main steps required - the first is to epoxy the fuse which is ready and waiting, and then to build the wings.
The fuse is pretty straightforward with the CF braid in place I just need to add the epoxy and wrap it with cling wrap to smooth the surface while curing - this is a technique used to wrap fishing rods.
The wing will be a bit trickier and will need to be built in stages as the tips are symmetrical and the root is semi symmetrical - the spar will be a sine wave (more on that soon) - today I made the 2D templates and will start to prepare the blanks.
Definitely heavy duty supportsI re-printed my tail feathers with added internal ribs - printing went really well - both tailpieces are joined with a connecting rib front and rear - the purpose is to prevent any movement during printing - works well.
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@Boberticus - my loose plan with the wave spar is to make a wave template and hot-wire the wave through the wing - then I will sandwich some paper in the wave to determine the total length - from there I plan to cut two tapered strips of CF and 3M77 each one to the wave halves - after that I will epoxy the front and rear of the wing back together - the two strips of spar will bond together.
Given this is a Pitcheron I also need to add a wing rod tube after the spar is in - then I will sheet the wing with CF - I have some really fine CF sheet (0.8K) - the process will be to 3M77 the CF onto the wings, epoxy and bag (using domestic food bagger).
But then both guide wires would have to be fixed to the foam somehow and you would need a rigid backing.I just realised with this method I could rig up the hot wire to be a fixed system that would free up one hand to focus on feeding the foam through with more accuracy (less post sanding) - I will think on it!
ok, I didn't know you were feeding the foam through. I had the guide wires and foam all taped down and just ran the hot wire over it.I was thinking the hot-wire would hinge from the front edge - when it hinges over the wire would make contact with the two guides (taped on) - as the hot-wire has some spring tension it would stay in contact with the two guide wires even as they change in distance around the curves - currently I have to hold the hot-wire in one hand and feed the foam with the other (it works, but improvements are always welcomed)!
I was thinking zucchini , So what do use 30 minute epoxy ?this morning I had a hankering for sausages, so I mixed up some epoxy and wrapped the fuse with packaging cellophane - it was impossible to wrap the cellophane without wrinkles, but I think it looks worse in the pictures than the first layers of wrapping (which was not too bad) - I always expected to have to do some sanding - you can also see the canopy edge former in place between two layers of the wrap, it should form the joggled edge.
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Hmmm, I maybe have to look into it, is it fairly thin?@Wildthing - I use Wests’ epoxy - short set epoxy does not go hard enough for sanding etc.