Hank - I like those numbers! My only molding experience has been with RTV, epoxy, and now latex. But a new plug would certainly be in order

Okay, more progress to report

Front Gear:

I primed, filled and sanded the forward portion of the bottom hull so I could create my front landing gear bay doors and hinges. I had to use quite a bit of filler to compensate for my sloppy planking job, but I'm happy with the weight of things thus far so I'm not too worried. [link=http://www.stef.com/Albatrosspics/update 8_3_07/frontgear.MOV]Here[/link] is a video of the front gear and flaps in operation. They are not perfectly to scale in the way they are hinged, but from a distance I think they'll pass for a likeness. The flaps are held closed by a rubber band, and pushed open by the front gear, a low tech method but simple. I forgot to think about the buoyancy of the wheels when design my landing gear setup, and so I may have to do some bathtub tests to adjust things if I want to be able to taxi from a water landing onto land and vice versa.



Float mold:

After many layers of latex added to my new float mold, I cut it open and found things way too floppy to mold as is. I put the latex halves back over the mold and wrapped everything in fiberglass, added epoxy, and sarranwrapped everything ("poor man's vacuum bag"). I then dremeled it back open and had two halves, sufficiently rigid, but flexible enough to release the parts.



Molding the floats:

To cast and make the hollow positive forms, I started by brushing two light coats of epoxy and micro balloons. Then I added a couple layers of 2oz fiberglass, cut in little pieces and placed on the bias. The halves were quite flexible by themselves and I had to be careful not to tear or crease the parts when taking them out of the mold. I don't have a lot of molding experience, but this latex float mold has been the least hairpulling of them all.



Joining the floats:

I tacked the lightweight halves together with superglue, then poured a heated batch of 30 minute epoxy and microballoons through a top hole, and just rotated the mold around and around until all the seams were covered from the inside. I could see the flow of epoxy so I was able to make sure the epoxy flowed evenly. Blowing air through the top hole revealed a couple bubbles, which I then filled, lightly sucking air so the epoxy would fill the void. Each float at this point is about 75 grams.



Until next time -stef