Suggestions to Preston Briggs
This site was last updated on February 15, 2008.
Gus Raiford used to make some cool hinges, but he's out of the business and I needed more, so Howard helped me build some.
We use a router to cut a small groove in the edge of a 1/4" piece of balsa, to help support the tube during molding.
Here's the pretty groove.
With the tube in place. We use a little CA to hold it there.
Ready to go. The white thing is a piece of 1/4" plywood, covered with Monocoat and mold release.
After wetting out the carbon with epoxy, we mold it around the tube.
Into the bag. Notice one end of the bag (really a big tube of plastic) is sealed with tape.
We'll seal the open end of the bag with a strip of tacky tape.
After applying the vacuum. The extra bump is another part Howard was working on.
Notice the little bit of "breather" string.
Squeezing the parts between two plates should give a nicer finish.
The hard-working vacuum pump.
A few days later.
Peeking at the inside.
After trimming off the ragged edges with a table saw.
I should have put tape over the tube to keep the epoxy out.
Like slices of pepperoni... They're very light, less than 1 gram each.
I'll bolt them in place.
This scheme works out well. We can set the hinge line into the leading edge as far as we like, allowing us to reduce control forces, and we're still able to replace the stab if it's damaged.