dinsdag 20 november 2007

Internal taping

Most of the internal taping and extra laminates have been done now. Instead of using peel ply I experimented using plastic on top of the fabric.
First impression:

  • it's very easy to see where there's air in the laminate, and its very easy to get rid of the air by squeeging the bubble to the edge of the plastic;
  • it's difficult to know for sure, but to me it seems the cloth is much more 'compact' and well adhered;
  • after removing the plastic the surface is very smooth with the weave (almost) filled; it will probably be easy to sand it without sanding too much into the cloth;
  • unlike working with peel ply it's easy to see what is happening to the cloth;
  • the edge of the cloth blends in very nice;
  • the plastic-trick works for flat surfaces and doesn't work in corners (can't plie it without a lot of wrinkels)

The first results are encouraging and I''ll go on using this technique. For now I only used it to laminate on top of already sheeted foam, I'm not sure it will work as well on bare foam. We'll see.

I tried to take some nice pictures, but I wasn't able to get very good ones.
Posting them anyway....


deck stringer glued to roof
laminated with UD + C + P(lastic)
plastic removed
foam bedded for placing rudder web
Laminating the last layer of cloth (UD) on the rudder web, this time in an ordinary garbage bag, heated to speed up curing

1 opmerking:

Grant Kinsman zei

Hi Menno,
You are making amazing progress. Your observations about using the plastic sheet are the same as mine. Glad it works for you too.
Grant