Your latest creation

[kane]

Greg and Tom Doe sent me this picture of Steve Sica’s F1.

Beautiful!!! And if you look in the background you get to see a picture of Bill Hager. Great memories form those days for sure. Even remember contests with heats like... Hager, Gager and Yeager!

Thanks

DK

[Dave Yost]

SO BITCHIN.........Racing now is good and I feel that the NMPRA has done a very good job at making racing more accessible, but the 70's and 80's F1/Q15 scene was some of the best craftsmanship ever! You really had to know how to build and paint.

Cheers, Dave

[vonderhey]

The Rickey Rat Kit

[Greg Doe]

It looks like the picture on the kit box is the same airplane as Steve is holding? It's at least the same paint scheme.

[Laird]

Greg,
Same paint scheme, but it's a QM15 kit.

DK,
I looked but I couldn't find the pic of Steve's rat, but Greg came thru. That's exactly the hand-lettered airplane I was talking about. Cool stuff.

Laird

[Dave Yost]

A few teaser shots, more to come from the DYD shop.....

[Tony Pacini]

Dave,

How are you able to not need a breather layer over the whole laminate? Your way seems easier and I’d like to try it. Pros? Cons?

[Laird]

Dave,

How are you able to not need a breather layer over the whole laminate? Your way seems easier and I’d like to try it. Pros? Cons?

Look closely at the middle shot and you'll see breather.

[Dave Yost]

So, it’s hard to see in the picture, but I am using peal-ply over the entire laminate and only using breather under the one way valves.

Pros:

1. Pulls harder against the surface of the laminate
2. Draws excess epoxy up through the peal ply, and traps on top where it dries and is pealed off when the peal ply is removed.
3. All done in one bagging operation (the going trend is a two day - two bagging process operation)
4. I can see the skin (core position) during the process.
5. Don’t like removing stuck breather cloth from the laminate. Love the consistent “ready to bond” finish the peal-ply leaves on the surface of the laminate.

Now for the bad news:
1. The type of peal ply I am using is expensive much more then perforated plastic sheet and breather cloth
2. Because the bag pulls harder around the tool and the breather is not there to absorb the excess epoxy, the bags have a shorter life. I am working through this now.

Hope to have some product to show off in the next few weeks.

Cheers, Dave

[Dave Yost]

Correction; I meant to say perforated plastic and breather. the peal-ply has been removed in these pictures. It leaves a flat, dull, and near ready to bond surface. I still rough up the spar channel with 150 grit and clean with Acetone before bonding. This stuff is used on full scale composite airplanes such as the LanceAir per-fabricated wing skins, and was SOP on all the bigger UAS airplanes.

Note I am using two one-way valves, I could probably use just one if I had a layer of breather over the entire part or maybe one folded strip that ran down the center. Just a different way to skin the cat.....I am pulling about 23 inches. I need a bigger pump to pull more. But it sure seems like the results are better with peal ply.

[Tony Pacini]

Dave,

I figured you were using a ply of some sort (even though I couldn't see it in the photo).

The recipe I follow uses polyester lining (from a fabric store) as a ply, paper towels for breather, and 4 mil plastic sheeting sealed with caulk to bag it (all are cheap and locally available).

I'd assumed that the breather was required to distribute the vacuum over the whole laminate and not just suck down a localized area around the port. Evidently that isn't an issue.

I might just give that a go the next time I lay one up. Thanks for sharing!

[Dave Yost]

You bet, and yes, I was not sure if the bag would suck down on the entire wing tool like it did on the tail. But it worked just fine. This was one of the reasons made a flat tail tool.

Dave

[Tony Pacini]

P.S. I dig the pre-cut holes for the aileron servo and lead

[vonderhey]

Due to the Coronavirus we now have individually wrapped epoxy mixing sticks.

[LittleViking]

Just finished my Quik-V Dual Servo Wing Kit from Tim Lampe. The second kit I've ever built (Though only half of a plane!), it was challenging, but a very fun kit to build, and the result is good. It's gonna go on a Quik-V-6 I'm currently finishing.

Leo