On 1 Aug 1995, Allan Hall wrote:
> To pick up on Steve A Eberhart's point on vaccum bagging wings. I have no
> direct
> experience of this, but there is a company in Florida (Dynamic wings I think)
> that produce finished wings for the Velocity (4 place canard kitplane) using
the
> vacuum bagging method. The Velocity wing construction is same as Europa i.e.
LE
> and TE foam cores bonded to composite spar, I have not seen any of their
> wings,
> so I can't comment on the results.
>
> HOWEVER, the Europa cockpit module is produced by vacuum bagging over a GRP
> mould, and the result is not a good advert for the process. Many creases in
> the
> laminate surface are evident on my cocpit module ( I think that now they have
> sub-contracted the work out and Q.C. is better). I have spent 10-15 hours
> tidying up and patching the worst of the creases to get an acceptable fit, has
> anyone else had this problem? I do accept that with the simpler shape of a
> wing
> it may be possible to get a better finish with vacuum bagging (hope so, or I
> wouldn't want to fly in it!)
That is bad news. The creases will cause stress points in the laminate.
>
> If anyone wishes to experiment with vacuum bagging I have a spare vacuum pump
> that requires only a 1hp motor to get it operational again, free of charge to
> anyone that can use it.
>
> Allan J Hall
> (North Yorks, U.K.)
>
>
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|--------------------------->>>>>>>>>!!
| Vortecs Aircraft ---{*}--- |
|