2010 Sticky Weekend

[Will_Lee]

Think so. Small quantity. It will be good to go and have a look!

W

[john_hamilton]

thanks everyone, particularily phil, for the help today. Im gutted i cant be there tommorrow, have fun unwrapping my boom, pole and gantry, hope it goes well!!!

[phil_kirk]

Hi John,

The gantry came out nicely.  The concept of removing the mould from the gantryworked very well and required no force.  It needs trimming and probably a bit of carbon plate to thicken up were the rudder pin and gantry pivots go through.

The boom came off the madrel with some help of the fork lift. In areas the uni looks at bit dry in the side walls of the boom. The boom weighed in at 870grams. Using the spreadsheet and knowing what cloth we used it should weigh 910 grams. We achieved 23% resin by weight. The target is about 30%.

My mistake was not suggesting that we wet out the uni on both sides before putting these layers on.

To rectify this I intend to sand down the boom to remove the peal ply release agent and open any other dry areas. Then with Roland's help I will vac a further layer of uni and weave to finish it off. Vacum bagging may get more resin to penetrate any remaining dry areas. This should result in a boom that is as strong as intended in all areas and possibly stronger in others.

The pole appears to be be better but we could not remove it from the mandrel. The problem could be due to the tape reacting with the release wax. An issue I was not familiar with. Again Roland has offered to try to remove it by aplying some heat.
Not the ideal result but certainly not an unsalvageable failure.

[Will_Lee]

A stick up on a spar is far from unheard of. Careful dremel work all the way down one side has resulted in successful spars before now!

Sorry could not make it.

[john_hamilton]

phil, do you want the carbon back then?? i can send it if you want
also, ill assume the forward section of the boom was ok?? it seemed fully wetted out?

[phil_kirk]

I'll let you know john,

The forward part of the boom was ok and had a good ring to it.

We may have to cut the pole off but we will try all other options before this.

The boom and the gantry have been in the warm for another 24 hour and are much stiffer than they were on Sunday morning. 

[john_hamilton]

by cut off do you mean dremel a line lenghtways, prize it off, then re-build the surrouding layup?? i.e. what some people do with rudder stocks?

[roland_trim]

Cut inline with the uni-s, probably only need to be baked for a bit to get the wax to soften.