ORIGINAL: ianober
I will have to check on G-10 and Carbon cutting on the laser. The facility has a list of approved materials to cut in the machines and Fiberglass and Carbon are not on the list. you have to get special permission for something like that. Depending on the material, some give of poisonous gas when lased. But I do know people have cut fiberglass there. I am going to run into the same problem as well for the fowler flap hinges when I go to cut them. If thats a problem then I will be cutting them from aluminum sheet on the Tormach 4 axis machine
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laser or CNC cut doesn't really matter to me.. the end product is the same... most of the places i've talked to have said that the carbon and fiberglass stuff would be best to have CNC cut... I've even thought of sending the dragon plate company my dxf files for the parts, and seeing if they could produce the parts using their "dragon plate" process (birch aircraft ply, laminated with carbon on both sides). Its supposedly stronger than a solid carbon sheet of the same size... and about the same price. I believe they can also custom make carbon parts in any dimension you want... I'm toyin with the idea of having them make a .060" thick carbon "I" beam that is tapered for the main wing spar's for the F-14... And since i was planning on laminating the main birch bulkheads in the F-14 w/ carbon anyways, it might see what kind of price they want for just making them for me
If ya haven't seen their stuff, the website is
www.dragonplate.com
thomas