Assuming you have a fuselage mold in two halves, where you want to make a canopy (on the top, obviously) and an engine cover/belly pan on the underside, all parts with Nomex core. When do you actually join the respective parts together (i.e left and right hand side) Is this done right at the end, after you have manufactured your canopy and bellypan halves, trimmed them, sealed the edges, released them, placed them back in the mold halves, and layd up the "main" fuselage halves with a 1/4" overlap??
Yes, my method has me join the halves at the end of the process.
When you have "popped" a part out of the mold, and later put it back, then obviously the surface of the part is no longer "stuck" to the mold surface. When joining the two halves (using epoxy/micro balloons, cabosil or whatever) Is there not a big risk of epoxy creeping in between the part and the mold?
Yes, the epoxy will creep, so be aware. You can put the trimmed and released part in place with 3M77 and vacuum bag it into place, this seems to help.
don't forget the cabsil/epoxy around the edges)
Do you ever fill up the honeycomb where you are going to trim, during the lay-up process? Would save doing it later on, as you trim/cut a "solid" material. If done carefully it should not add much extra weight.
I usually bevel the core where it ends, typically 3~4 to 1. This helps tranfer the load.
Thank you Darrin, you have given me many good ideas.
Magne
Thanks, you will probably come up with even better ways to do this. Keep experimenting