dizzyj

Im toying around with the idea of making my own wing and splitter out of CF Been doing some research utilizing a 2 piece vacuum infused mold, but wonder if anyone has done something like this on their own? Im sure it would be cheaper/easier just to buy a wing, but I like fabbing things. and knowing how to do cf seems like a nice thing (cf tub anyone?)

thoughts?

incomplete

sometime this next year i'm planning on something similar: hood and wing. let's keep each other posted.

Lightningmcnulty

Yes you can do it, with a few choice parts it's fairly straight forward!

Get some fiberglass cloth first, preferably a light weight 1 or 2oz because it's easier to learn with then buy some west systems epoxy, it's easy to work with and comes out very clear, you will need release agent some peel ply and an absorbent membrane.

You will need a vacuum pump, you can make these by putting a regular pump in a sealed box then add an inlet and outlet attach the pump outlet to the box inlet, you will find that the box inlet becomes a vacuum, it's worth doing this because vacuum pumps are expensive.

Get some light weight but strong plastic sheet from home depot and some of the grey window sealing putty get some clear tubing, this will make your vacuum bagging kit.

Now make some shapes from wood, start with simple shapes to make life easy cover them in release agent then peel ply then fiberglass and resin, make sure you build up a nice 1" or 2 of fiberglass cloth, bag them and see how it all comes out, once you have done theis you have a negative mould, smooth out the mould and put a nice coat of resin on there, put release agent in it then resin then fiberglass cloth only needs to be as 1/4" thick max, bag it, when you pull it out you should have a exact replica of the wood part made in fiberglass.

The reason I tell you to use fiberglass to learn with is that it's much cheaper and easier to mould, once your a fiberglass master then you can switch to carbon!

Pm me if you need more info or more detail on any points and I will add them here

Good luck

Kim

Lightningmcnulty

Thought I would show you an example and where I learned this!







This is my other hobby, remote control turbine powered jets, and if you thought 944's were expensive you haven't seen anything



This is the latest addition to the fleet, it will do over 230mph and cost just over $8000

Here is some size perspective for you guys




Kim

dizzyj

Sweet, nice work.

I was thinking about using planters foam blocks to make a model, cover in bondo, then cut that in half and use as a plug. I have not figured out how to secure the 2 pieces back together. I guess I could simply epoxy, but It seems like I should have something rigid where the wing supports would attach.

95ONE

Did you learn it from the BASS BOAT paint convention! LOL. I love the carbon work. Not so much the Jazz hands paint.

Lightningmcnulty

Ha ha, the jazz hands paint was just trying something different, wait until I do it to the 944

You can make moulds from that stuff but it's probably a little crumbly to work with, your better of with white expanded foam, the kind that they use for packing!

You can also use insulation foam from the depot, glue several sheets together if you need extra thickness.

It's really easy to use and you can sand it smooth, you will defiantly need to bondo it if you wish to use it as a mould plug.

It's easy to join two halfs just use around a 2" strip of fiberglass and resin on the inside to glue them together, then you can water some resin down with alcohol to brush on the outside to fill the seam, then wet sand and polish it to make the seam dissapear. You can also spray clear lacquer on with the right prep to finish the surface nicely.

Kim

Lightningmcnulty

If you can clarify what you mean by where the wing supports meet then maybe I can offer a more tailored solution

Kim

95ONE

I think my humor is just too sarcastic, and it definitely sounds much better in my head. It just reads mean now that I see it. Glad you took it in stride. Thanks for the help, and the plane projects truly do look spectacular.

Landjet

If you can get plaster and hemp that is the easy fast way to make a mold that you can then use to vacuum bag on.

Lightningmcnulty

No man I got it, it was funny, most people are just to serious,I got a similar reaction when I first took it out to the field to fly, just the reaction I was looking for ha ha.

I radar'd the big one that is sat on the trunk of the 944 yesterday 250mph!!!

Plaster sounds like a great idea, does it release from the mould ok with release agent, I know that it's also possible to use latex but I don't think that would work in this application.

Kim

Landjet

I just use a good smooth coat of turtle wax for a release agent. Thats what we used making molds and parts in the aircraft world.

dizzyj

as far as joining the two halves, if I made the wing completely enclosed (i.e. the wing ends would be part of the mold), then I would not have the ability to get to the inside once I join the two halves. I guess I could leave the ends open, create the wing ends separately.

How would you join 2 halves of a model that make a completely enclosed object?

To mount to the car I need to put some bolts or something through the bottom half such that I can attach to some brackets. I guess I could always reinforce the bottom half with some honycomb and use tnuts and just glass that in before joining the two halves?

Landjet

To make a nice seam you would need to offset along the entire edge of the part (joggle the mating surface) where they come together the width of how many plies thick the layup is going to be. Kind of hard to explain easier to show with pictures. Anyway it would set in a joggle maybe 1/4 wide all the way along the mating surface. I will look for pictures.

Lightningmcnulty

hmm turtle wax sounds awesome, easy to get and cheap!

The only things I have experience with have an open end somewhere so i'm not sure how to accomplish what your thinking of.

The only thing that I can think of is to leave holes where the wing would mount to the car so that you can get up in there and glue everything together then make fiberglass plugs to go into the holes, the plugs can have your mounting hardware in so that you can make sure everything lines up the way it should before you do the final gluing, you can use a product called hysol 9462 to glue things together its really strong doesn't degrade fast and easy to work with but requires one of their guns to use.

This has got me thinking about duplicating my stock wing in carbon, just need to get a spare stock wing from someone and see what happens!

Kim