3D Demystifying Vacuum Bagging of foam wings!!

[Terryscustom]

I wish I could offer tinted canopies but as of to date I have not been able to find any tinted material or should I say affordable.

No fear, I'm planning to do a short thread on how to tint a canopy with automotive clear and black paint

 

[Terryscustom]

Here are a little photo flood of the actual bagging process. Later tonight I'll have a video up. Looks like I'm going to do my Rudder in the video.

 

[Terryscustom]

I'm getting ready to bag my wings and need to add my unidirectional carbon first. This is not mandatory but I've been having great luck with this material. It adds a tremendous amount of surface tension to the sheeting and is super easy to use (much more user friendly than carbon tow). The material comes in sheets and is cut lengthwise with a straight edge and a utility knife. After strips are cut, it can be cut to length by scoring with the utility knife and snapping it. You will go through a few blades in your knife!!

Since I'm using resin to do my sheeting, I only need to "stick" the carbon to the foam, so do do that I'm using a small amount of non-hardening wood glue. These are glues that dry but remain somewhat flexible and don't get brittle. Just a very small amount is plenty. The vacuum will draw resin around to the backside of these strips during the bagging process. You could also mix up a small batch of resin and apply these strips with resin.

 

[oh58skid]

This is a jig I made to edge true sheeting using a table saw.

 

[oh58skid]

This is a jig I made to edge true sheeting using a table saw. View attachment 3113

 

[lakerider8]

This is a jig I made to edge true sheeting using a table saw. View attachment 3113

I made one similar to yours. Works great, even with a regular table saw blade. Just don't use it in my shop... Sure will make lots of dust and a mess on the floor.

 

[Terryscustom]

Here you go, TheLAW says I'm long winded and you asked for it. Hell YouTube even cut me off but here is a couple of vids:

 

[Terryscustom]

Quick tip on wings before I bagged those:

 

[Terryscustom]

And the part that's like Christmas.....parts come out of the bag:

 

[Yakman]

Quite the process, learned something new. Keep up the good work.