Airframe Construction With Fiber Glass

I was wondering the same thing having fixed cars and boats with fiberglass a few times in the past. I just built a thin fiberglass and resin shell to protect all my electronics on foam mounts, mount batteries in, route wiring and ESC's in and mount motors and landing gear directly to. It is 19 inches (483mm) diameter, X configuration and about 1/8" (3mm) thick in most areas. VERY strong, very rigid- I drilled 10mm holes everywhere to lower weight more, and still incredibly tough. With elec's installed it weighs in at about 500gms. I started with 1" thick styrene foam (pink or blue) insulation board and cut an exact form. I glued layers of foam together with spray glue to get more than the 1" thickness of one sheet of foam for room inside for elec's and batt's. I wrapped the foam form with all equal length and width pieces of fiberglass cloth carefully to minimize thick spots, and smeared resin into it with nitrile gloved hands. Another layer of cloth and resin and within 12 hours I was sanding and integrating a plastic hobby box for the electronics. I used gasoline to dissolve out the styrene foam from the inside. Way easy. I think its great, I'm going to do it again the same way for the next one, only bigger. Read the instructions, obey environmental regs, blah, blah, blah. fun material, give it a go.

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Maki December 9, 2011 at 6:45pm

I was wondering the same thing having fixed cars and boats with fiberglass a few times in the past. I just built a thin fiberglass and resin shell to protect all my electronics on foam mounts, mount batteries in, route wiring and ESC's in and mount motors and landing gear directly to. It is 19 inches (483mm) diameter, X configuration and about 1/8" (3mm) thick in most areas. VERY strong, very rigid- I drilled 10mm holes everywhere to lower weight more, and still incredibly tough. With elec's installed it weighs in at about 500gms. I started with 1" thick styrene foam (pink or blue) insulation board and cut an exact form. I glued layers of foam together with spray glue to get more than the 1" thickness of one sheet of foam for room inside for elec's and batt's. I wrapped the foam form with all equal length and width pieces of fiberglass cloth carefully to minimize thick spots, and smeared resin into it with nitrile gloved hands. Another layer of cloth and resin and within 12 hours I was sanding and integrating a plastic hobby box for the electronics. I used gasoline to dissolve out the styrene foam from the inside. Way easy. I think its great, I'm going to do it again the same way for the next one, only bigger. Read the instructions, obey environmental regs, blah, blah, blah. fun material, give it a go.
Graydon Tranquilla August 31, 2011 at 9:06pm

Check this out for making your own.... http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CompositeRockets/
C.P. Ryan May 25, 2011 at 2:14pm

MPI in NW Portland does custom composite work/design and production. Describe your project and I will give you some feedback...

C.P. RYAN
mahmood May 25, 2011 at 2:05am

This seems very interesting a couple of courses in airframe construction being taught inMalaysia http://asmaraaerospace.yolasite.com/uav-course.php

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Airframe Construction With Fiber Glass

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