Yeah, so far so good....going to sand everything nice and flat and next I'm thinking is another layer of the fabric on the inside and then a final one on the outside. It's amazing how light and stiff this thing is. I'd be surprised if it weighed much over 3 pounds right now.

Well, not a lot to report on this week....I did go ahead and bond another layer of the fabric underneath the wing and also on the outside. So it is very strong now and still lightweight. I was just going to go ahead and continue with our shop epoxy however when I figured out just how much I would need to bury this fabric to get the build I wanted.... and stopped. If I continued I would use up our shop supply and our supplier has run out of stock on it. Get this....there is currently a worldwide shortage of the raw stock used for making resin. Seems the Covid thing has kept people out of the large plants where it is made so suppliers are buying up everything as there is also a worldwide increase in composite construction demand. Who knew? So I scrambled over the weekend, tracked down some of the bigger suppliers and found a 2 part UV inhibited epoxy out in California. That's right unlike regular epoxy resin this one has an anti-yellowing characteristic which when combined with the UV protection of the Tamco clears should make a nice stable looking piece. Just some friendly advice to anybody using epoxy for anything from gluing to layup like I'm doing. SHOP NOW! Everybody is indicating shortages and price increases of at least 10% starting by at least March. My new resin should be in by the end of this week or so.....

So you are tacking the carbon fiber materials into place with spray adhesive.
Then you mention epoxy resin. I am assuming this is a clear resin that you apply over the carbon fiber?

How many layers of cloth will you put on? Does each one get tacked with spray adhesive or just the first one then the rest soaked with epoxy resin?

So it's pretty easy.... The spray adhesive is just for positioning since we are not bagging with this open layup method. The epoxy just dissolves what little of it is on the surface as it wets out the fabric. The epoxy resin I am using is 521 brand which is good for both general purpose repair work on most anything and is very good at "wetting out" the fabric. What it is not as good at is building thickness/depth. So I am now switching to a higher build product that I'll comment on later as I use it. And, yeah, as far as layers go I am doing two underneath and two on top. That seems to be plenty of strength for this part. Still incredibly light weight. And yes, I have used the spray tack for positioning each layer.
Stay tuned..... we'll next be doing the thick pour buildups of the epoxy.

Looks like a neat project. I want to built a splitter for the TA once I have the paint work completed and have considered laying up the material like you are.

I believe you mentioned you would share details on material and vendor if things work out. I hope it does for you and if so can you summarize what materials you used.

Looks great so far

JT

You should go for it on that part. Same thing....just making it out of foam, then moving on to fabric. If you price out "real" carbon fiber parts they are very expensive. The stuff coming from overseas has a "cheat" built into it that most people don't notice. They lay up the initial part build out of fiberglass, then do just final wrap of carbon fiber in the mold. Fiberglass will fail underneath taking the pretty carbon fiber face right with it.
Yeah, I'll definitely give you a list of what I used a little further on here....just want to make sure everything performs well before listing it....

Thanks .

In your opinion knowing wood products like you do, my thought was to lay up carbon fiber over 3/16” Luan for the splitter and make mounts that Brought the height to just under the stock spoiler. I’d mount it off of struts to set the height. Would that turn out rigid enough?

JT

I could see that.... Just make sure you completely encapsulate all exposed wood and you would be alright. You could either use a lighter weight like I did which is easier to "drape" and shape and do a few layers or go with a heavier weight to begin with. I've got to say comparing this to comparable fiberglass layup this stuff is wayyyyyy more rigid. Where you have your mount areas those could be incredibly stiff and strong by simply putting some metal plates between your fabric. If you need to prove that stiffness to yourself for your application do a test strip of luan with your process and see how it performs.

Progress! Okay, so I have a secured a great product to finish this thing off with. We had been using our regular 521 epoxy that we use for general shop repair and fill work. Well, as far as saturating or what is called "wetting out" the fabric it works great but from that point on you need these thick pourable slow setting epoxies. You can build a 1/16 to 1/8 inch thick crystal clear film with literally minutes of work. This is a 1 to 1 mix of A to B so I just picked up some 16 ounce epoxy mix cups along with a 1 full gallon kit of this new stuff. Pretty impressive stuff. I would recommend mixing it for 4 to 5 minutes, letting it sit in the cup for maybe another few minutes, pouring it on to your work surface and slowly drawing it out with disposable brush. In these pic.s you see where I started with just the fabric saturated with our regular shop epoxy, then filled in with a single coat of about 4 ounces of the new resin. This is the inside of one side of the wing. I just scuffed it with some 180 grit paper, then used non hardenable modeling clay (that is the white border you see around the perimeter of the area I wanted to build). Once you poured it on and pulled it all out with the brush it immediately start leveling and passing air bubbles you have whipped up with that brush. You simply wave a heat gun (a good hair dryer or butane fondue torch would do) over the epoxy and all of the bubbles just pop and are gone. I did a series of these pours on the underneath as a center section (used about 10 ounces) and this was the last of the end pours. One thing, keep a small bubble level handy to always level the area you are working on so the coating is uniform. I did each of these areas after work at about 5 and they would pretty hard with no stickiness by 8 the next morning. So check out the pic.s

And I had a little more time last night and today. A question came up from a local guy here...He asked, "How well does that epoxy flow out?" Well, it flow out so well that it will quite literally take on any shape that it is poured over yet build crystal clear and level on the surface. Take a look at my first pic. That is the clear "overage" from pouring on the outside dripping over the edge on to heavy duty trash bags I have laying down. The stuff won't stick to the poly bags so once it is partially cured you can peel it off like the skin seen in that pic. Notice the texture of the bag recreated on one side yet it is smooth and crystal clear on the other side.... pretty neat, huh. Letting that piece of skin cure for about a week and it becomes very hard yet still has some flex to it.

Okay, so I'm learning new tricks from the art communities online. Directing the flow of this stuff while it sets up and keeping it from flowing where you don't wont it is challenging. You saw me using clay which is a carry over from fiberglass work I've done in the past. It appears the art people use different types of tape for dams and sealing areas off where you don't want this clear. You can use regular mail packing tape, Tyvek brand sealing tape, Tuck tape, HVAC aluminum tape, and some types of duct tape. Blue tapes or any type of crepe or paper type tape.....ahhhh., not so much. Another key thing with those other tapes. Take them and lay them against a large cotton towel for a few minutes ....that will reduce their "stickiness" somewhat and make them easier to remove. And speaking of removal. If you use any of those tapes..... GET THEM OFF IN THE FIRST 12 TO 18 HOURS OF HARDENING!.... I put that all in caps to save your sanity. If you wait past 24 hours and your poured clear spillage is thick enough over the tape it will be a bear to peel these tapes off.
I'm saying things are going pretty well here....I put some captions along with the rest of the pic.s that you might want to read. Remember, some of this tech. would be very handy for making great Christmas and birthday gifts out of your family memories.... well, along with car stuff.....