RE: FUNJET
Hey guys these are a few pic's of the early work done on the Aurora (TJ) after I had reshaped the airfoil and framed out the wing and vertical stabs. The framing made a tremendous difference in stiffness of the wing ,I also extended the wing 2.5". Framing the vertical stabs and elevons also made these items really stiff and resistant to torsional twisting. The elevons and stabs also sanded down to reduce their thickness and were glassed using a very inexpensive bagging method.I used a Reynolds Handi-Vac food bagging system that's used to store small food portions(the system comes with a vacuum pump and some small bags) ,the bag I used was a 1 gallon size that measured 10 9/16"x11 1/2" big enough for the vertical stabs and elevons. The Handi-Vac system cost 10$ here in the US and the large bags were 4 bucks can't bet that.You will need two other thing no.#1 a material called peel-ply that will be placed over the item once the resin and glass have been applied(it will allow excess resin to pass through it into the next layer). no.#2 breather cloth that will be placed over the peel-ply (it will absorb the excess resin that's squeezed out) then the whole thing ,glassed item cover with the two additional layers is put into the bag and the air is vacuumed out .Leave the bag overnight and when you remove the part you will have to peel off the two last layers and you will have an incredibly stiff light weight part ready for paint with just a bit of light sanding. all parts must be sanded even if you don't want to change their shape to remove any mold release agent present on it's surface.I recommend using 220 grit down to 400 grit and use a sanding block for all flat wing surfaces and leading and trailing edges it will give you a very flat ,true finished surface finger tips will not work as well on large surfaces. I used 2 coats of light weight spackle sanding between each coat with 320 to 400 grit paper .All elevons and stabs covered with 2oz cloth and West System resin elevons had carbon vail added to le of bottom and complete topside. If this info is missing anything please ask I will fill in the blanks.