Ask away. BUT I have a methoud thats easier, less mess gets just as good results and less expensive. In fact Dave hanson ha used this methoud on his up comming project and even my daughter uses it on her rockets.

Do you use duct tape or heat shrink tape Conway? I'm thinking of trying the heat shrink tape route, but I'm unclear if it can be done with a heat gun since I don't have an oven that I could use for heating it.

It's really not hard but it does depend what it is you want to vacuum bag. I don't know what technique Conway is referring to but I would be happy to help you out with the vacuum bagging if you can't find anyone there.

It turns out I will be taking a trip to Longmont next month for business. I could take an extra day if there was enough people interested and do a little show and tell. It is a lot easier if you can see it rather than read about it.

Doug

I do a Mylar wrap around my galssed tube (or if im making convolute wound CF or glass tubing.) Then I use Duct tape compression wrap methoud. I use more then 1 size of glass on my wrap. I use 2 wraps of 6 to 9 oz then I wrap it with 2 oz 1 time make sure its all wet out fairly heavy and good then wrap with the mylar and then wrap with duct tape. Be sure to be careful as the epoxy will come out of the ends and can get a little messy as it squeezes out any excess epoxy. Let it set and cure and then unwrap. you end up with an incredible looking glassed tube with little to no finish work and its light weight and strong. I have plenty of pictures of this procedure to share. Ive used this methoud for many many years now. It skips all the other expensive stuff needed to do vacumm bagging and gets the same results. Ive used the heat tapes and really not any noticeable difference in the quality and or weight of the finished product. The heat tape is more expensive and also adds more steps to it so whay not just stick with the Duct tape. Batman, I assume you have seen me use this methoud before?? Think i fisrt shared this with the group back in the Phits days of the club. Anyhow I would be glad to share any knowledge or help I can. I am also sure that a true master of this hobby that Doug is , is also a great help and his way is a definite great way to do things as well. So either way looks like your covered.

I for one would love to see a demo/workshop by either or both Doug and Conway. Just say when and where.

I've never seen you do the duct tape Conway, but I've read about and talked to alot of people who agree with you. I would certainly give it a try.

I've been vacuum bagging for quite a while now. The UprOar was largely vacuum bagged for those of you who saw it at the club meeting. The fin can was repeatedly v-bagged - once for each layer, a total of 6 times for the tip to tip. It's easy if you have the equipment and somewhat tedious to make the bag each time. The results come out flawlessly as long as you don't try to wrap 3 or 4 layers around a tube and expect no wrinkles. Best way is to do one layer at a time. We made the mistake of rushing one airframe section and bagging 3 layers wrapped at once and it sure pulled everything down to the phenolic, but resulted in significant wrinkles from the leftover slack. We ended up sanding the wrinkles out and adding another layer or two of glass to cover.

Almost 100% of my composite work is v-bagged although I also use shrink tape occasionally. Shrink tape works best with a curing oven and epoxy that requires an elevated cure temperature. I typically use West Systems which should NOT be cured at an elevated temp.

Warren

Warren,

For those of us not at the annual meeting, do you have more info about your project? Do you have a web page?

Doug

I think a vry easy way to get a smooth finish is to get a piece of Mylar. Bigger than your tube and wrap after you glass it with the mylar. Put it as tight as you can and then ductape the whole thing, it come out pretty smotth but with some small pinholes.

I think a vry easy way to get a smooth finish is to get a piece of Mylar. Bigger than your tube and wrap after you glass it with the mylar. Put it as tight as you can and then ductape the whole thing, it come out pretty smotth but with some small pinholes.

this is the methoud I was talikng about Eric that ive used for years. In fact I think i remember long ago showing it with you and JW when he had to repair his L3 bird and had it jacked into the door frame. Wow thats been a few years. lol. BUT there is also a way to eliminate the pin holes. Make one last wrap with 2oz glass(over the top of the 6-9 oz cloth wraps) and lay the epoxy on a bit heavy wrap the mylar nice and tight. The pinholes are caused by compresion of the epoxy into and out of the larger holes in the heavier glass cloth putting the thinner 2 oz fixes it because its really fine and sheer. Makes for a very good finish.

One of the nice benifits of doing compression wrap over vbagging is just what you stated there. Warren. Wrinkling. With Compression wrap I can do 2 layers of 6 to9 oz glass also then layered with a wrap of 2 oz glass and never get a wrinkle one and it comes out as glassy and smooth as a baby's butt with the same adheasion and reduction of excess epoxy. Years ago I was into doing composites.(im sure you remember warren) I had done my own tubes vbagged as well as just laminating cardboard and phenolic. After doing the compression wrap I swore to never go back to vbagging. But thats my preference atleast for me anyhow. I shared this recently on TRF and some other places and it seems that alot of people have interest in how its done and once they do it they seem to like it alot. I would be glad to give a demo.

The bird on the home page of this site is the UprOar flying at BALLS 06. I'm working on getting the construction photo gallery up here on the site. Give me a day or so.

Warren