acdii

I have a CG Super Chipmunk that I made molds of the pants, so once I make the copies of the originals, what is the best method to join them together? The originals fit one inside the other, one is smaller than the other. The molds came out great, super smooth so the copy should be really nice, and gives me the ability to add plywood for the joiner to the strut. Since I fly off grass, these will be a lot stronger than the plastic ones.

speedracerntrixie

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Can you post a picture of the molds? The style of you mold will determine the best way to join them but as rule of thumb you would join the two halves with fiberglass tape and the same resin system you used to make them. The type of mold will determine if you do this in or out of the mold.

MTK

Can't help much regards to joining your halves but do have a couple suggestions that will help grass pants (as opposed to pavement pants). The pants I build all have halves that butt together. I get the edges flat on a sanding board, hold carefully, and tack glue all around with ca. Then I add glass strips and carbon rovings inside the seam. But for halves that do not butt together, this won't help

Before joining the halves tho, I add carbon cloth to all high stress areas. I also add carbon rovings around the wheel opening, usually around 15-20K. Then I join the halves. I think these two simple things will help your grass pants stay together for years. The construction doesn't need to be heavy either to be very strong. The pants coming from my molds weigh about 15 grams a piece complete with all the carbon reinforcements, axle hard points (steel), etc. These are not exactly small or large, about 7 1/2" long by 2 1/2" tall by 1 1/4" wide.

Understanding where the stresses are allows me to add strength (and weight) only in the required areas and remove weight from everywhere else. That's the beauty of well conceived, custom builds.

acdii

I still need to do a little edge cleaning where the resin seeped under the parts, then I can wax and prep it for the parts.

I took the kit halves and after waxing them, laid them out on a piece of foam that is normally used for school projects, I cut out foam pieces to fit inside the pants so they hold their shape, and secured them to the foam that way. I little resin got under the edges, so need to get that cleaned up, and I had also planned to leave just a little extra edge, so it worked out perfect. All four parts are on one mold. This is my second mold that I made, the first being the cowl for the Chipmunk, which came out better than I thought it would, but I learned from that how to make the mold better, and this one all four pieces came out nice and clean and the molds look really good, don't see any pinholes, or flaws. They aren't very big though, only about 4-5" long by 2 1/2" tall, and maybe 1 1/2" wide.

I was thinking that on one pant side to leave about 1/2" of cloth untouched by resin, and fold that into the other part to help with joining since its so thin at the rear. It will be a while before I can get a picture though, not going to be home tonight, so maybe tomorrow.