I'm back at work, slow but steady. Latest news, I changed carbon form twill to unidirectionl ; it's two layers of unidir at +/- 45° sewn together. It avoids the pinhole problem. Remember the youtube vid where there put an extra layer of kevlar to assure water tightness. The reseller said it'll be a bit more difficult to use though.
I also ordered Airex R63 thermoforamable foam, it seems to be the best solution, but I'll tell you as soon as I get it and do a test.
I'll do the curing at 60° myself, so I bought polystyrene boards to build the oven, that'll need testing too !
On more point : if you choose to do this, don't copy me and skip the male mould to build a female mould from scrap. It's so much harder to carve concave shapes and to make it slick...
Spring's already near, but I'll be sailing on my 470 in stead of a moth for a while more.
thank's for reading.
Hi there,
ReplyDeleteI used cellotex (wall insulation) to build the oven that was capable of reaching 60c I used three tube heaters to achieve this without burning the garage down! All recommended by Aardvark..
I hope this helps!
Phil
Hello Michael,
ReplyDeleteFirst of all I have to say that we have
something in common. We both are building our own
moth! I also just started building without sailing one before.
I live in Germany and work as an Industrial Designer. I started 2 years
ago by building the foils first. Now the foils are almost done and I have
to start working on the hull. That is the main reason why I am writing you.
I noticed that you are going to use Airex R63 foarm as core material. Why not
using nomex honey comb as core material? Now you probably think, well to expensive!
I ordered 10mm nomex honey comb for 33 euro per square meter.
http://www.voncorvin.de/sandwichmaterialien.htm
That is quite cheap if you compare it to other sellers like r&g for instance. They charge almost trible.
Good luck! Dominik
Hi Dominik,
ReplyDeleteGreat to know someone's doing the same thing nearby! I must admit I didn't do any complex calculations to determine the optimum sandwich thickness or carbon weight. After some reading forum threads I came to the conclusion, that weight was parameter no.1. The Nomex is lighter, but is said to be harder to work with and can be heavier in the end because epoxy fills the combs. Second point is the possibility of thermoforming the foam, which seams very practical to me. Finally -forget the previous points- Mach2 is made with a 4mm thick thermo-formable foam :-).
I would be very interested to know ho you built your foils, as that is still a big question in my mind. Do you have a blog too?
Much fun, michael.