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UAV Fuse Vacuum Bagging - Unwrapping

Posted by Richard Unwin on September 24, 2011 at 6:18am

ok, so home from dinner and ready to unwrap to see how it goes.

the good news is the cling wrap released from the wooden mold, and is actually very smooth on the inside, there are a few crinkles in the outer carbon, but these will not be noticeable once the excess is trimmed to size and glued to the 2nd half.  the fuse is very rigid already from front to rear and twists side to side, but adding the other half should make it stiff in both directionsrichie

 

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Comments

  • Richard Unwin September 27, 2011 at 6:52am

    hi, the cover material is 100um builders film from the local hardware store, i think it is a polypropylene. the real vacuum bags use a nylon film but this is rather expensive and hard to get here in oz in small quantities. the only hassle using the buildings film is that it has folds in the sheets and these can leave an imprinting in the finish of the epoxy.

     

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    Close up of the finish, a little rough but super strong and after gluing the 2 halfs together cant be twisted by hand.

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    3692276845?profile=originalthe differences in the outer finish are where i either had just plain peel ply (which makes a matt finish) or placed a piece of the film in direct contact with the resin (this produced the clear finish), the only issue with trying to get the clear finish all over is I seem to be getting fine pock marks in the finish ( I think this is trapped bubbles from mixing), 

     

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    3692276908?profile=originalI think its going to be able to squeeze every thing in.

     


     

  • Sean Skirvin September 24, 2011 at 9:04am

    Do you think we could get a close-up shot of the fuselage?   I have experience with hand-layup, v-bagging, and vacuum infusion. and am always interested to see others projects.  Also if you don't mind sharing, what kind of fabrics(weight/weave) are you using?  Very interesting so far!

  • Moderator
    Brian September 24, 2011 at 8:49am

    Oops, I didn't see this post, so forget about the question on the first post.  Looks good.  The carbon is unidirectional in strength, so if you really want it to be oober stiff in both directions a cross directional layer would do that for you, but I believe the other half would take care of the twisting.  

     

    Can you explain the film you used for the vacuum cover?  I've thought of using cheap shower curtains, but now sure how well that would work.

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