SPYHUNTER'S PILOT REPLICA-IN-THE-MAKING

[spyhunter2k]

A couple pics of the framed-in upper display area:

[streethawkuk]

Do you mind me asking what you had in mind for making the display from and how you would get all the different colours in there? Also how you were thinking of making the windscreen? (Or windshield as you lot over there call it ;D)

Here's a link I found that might help.

www.axe-man.org/page.asp?lang=E&page=101

[spyhunter2k]

The link isn't working right now but I'll try again later.

I'll be using real electronics eventually. I have most of the parts lined up. In the short term, I may have to use backlit translucent plastic to simulate the LEDs behind the the display templates I create.

I plan to do some reading up on the process of moulding plexiglass (or Perspex as I think it's known as over there). It will require me to carve the shape and bend the plexi to it using heat and force.

[ducati]

spyhunter2k said:

I plan to do some reading up on the process of moulding plexiglass (or Perspex as I think it's known as over there). It will require me to carve the shape and bend the plexi to it using heat and force.

Here is the process of making headlight covers for a Karma Dino kit car
www.hbpsystemsplc.co.uk/headligh.htm

[spyhunter2k]

Green polyurethane foam bricks were glued onto the upper nose section and carved to shape:

[spyhunter2k]

To give the upper nose a hard shell that can withstand the surfacing process, a layer of resin and then fiberglass were added.



Next, the lower sides will be filled in in a similar manner.

[ducati]

spyhunter2k said:

I've toyed with the idea of using carbon fiber.

Unless You have an autoclave You will be wet laying the CF, which then weighs almost as much as FG, the only real advantage then is that theres less tendency to crack.

[Pentastar]

What is fiberglass like to work with? I had a fiberglass shower stall that I cut in half this last weekend with a skillsaw and I got some of the little fibers on me which were really annoying because they're nearly invisible and they poke against your skin anytime you rub across it. I was wondering if it's just as bothersome to work with in raw form.

[streethawkuk]

I used to be a fibreglass laminator. It was an interesting job but I felt like a bloody pin cushion at the end of each day. I used to sit down to eat dinner with my girlfriend when I got home from work and she could smell the fumes from the fibreglass resin coming out of my lungs when I spoke to her.
Horrible stuff!

[jton]

hi spyhunter,i remember watching strethawk as a kid and im realy intrested in the replica,i want to build one an im jus wonderin how much will you b sellin bodys for?

john

[streethawkuk]

Spyhunter have you thought of making silicone moulds of your side panels and then laying up into those with fiberglass so you don't have to make them from scratch? You could then modify the pull from that to be more like the pilot side panels. Just an idea for you. ;D

[spyhunter2k]

Already thought of that and am considering modifying the series panels I have to make the pilot ones. Unlike the warped series nose, the side panels are in relatively decent shape, but would still require a good bit of surfacing.

I'll try first to make upper portion of the pilot panels from scratch. The reason is that I think I'll really only have to make one main side panel piece, as the upper portion of the side panel is symmetrical from top to bottom. This is not true of the series side panels, which have the front "high-volume airboxes" that angle downwards.

The lower portions of the side panels are a bit different, but are basically flat and relatively featureless, and I may still copy those directly from the series panels, as they are very similar.

I'm still weighing the benefits of using carbon fiber/epoxy resin vs. glass fiber/polyester resin combination. I've completed several things in fiberglass before. I'm curious to try CF out.

I haven't decided about kits or pricing yet if I do offer them, and I probably won't until the project is much closer to comlpetion, but it's a possibility.

[spyhunter2k]

If you decide to try a project involving fiberglass, here are a few bits of advice:

Wear gloves!

Cut all pieces before you start working, not after your hands are covered with sticky resin and there's a batch of resin curing.

Pour resin into several coffee cup size containers, enough to complete your project, but mix/catalyze only one cup of resin at at a time.

Use glass cloth pieces no larger than about 12cm X 18cm, and patch the final product together, overlapping the edges by at least 2 cm. Trying to work with overly large pieces is a common frustration among first-timers.

Try to keep all resin, and even more importantly, the methyl ethyl ketone catalyst liquid off of your bare skin. It may not bother you at first, but after just a few exposures you can develop a serious sensitivity to it.

[streethawkuk]

I'm still weighing the benefits of using carbon fiber/epoxy resin vs. glass fiber/polyester resin combination. I've completed several things in fiberglass before. I'm curious to try CF out.

As I think Ducati said you need an autoclave to reap the benefits of carbon fiber. The company I worked for when I was a fiberglass laminator were experimenting with a process that meant the carbon fiber didn't need to go into an autoclave and would cure in a standard automotive spray booth with the heaters turned on. That was still an involved process though.
You could still use epoxy with the standard fiberglass sheets. The benefits of epoxy over polyester is that you can do much thicker layups in one go where polyester would get too hot. Epoxy also has a slower cure time giving you more time to work. I personally hated epoxy, I always found it messy to work with as you really need to scrunch the fiberglass sheets to break the fibers and allow the epoxy to soak in. You also need to use glass filling in detailed areas with epoxy because it has a tendency to not lay down properly. You don't really get that with polyester unless you don't roll it down enough. I don't know what the catalyst over there is like for epoxy but the one we used here in England could cause cancer if you got in contact with it to much.
You mentioned overlapping sheets of fiberglass in one of your posts
I take it you meant with ripped edge to ripped edge because if your doing straight edge to straight edge with polyester you will get too much of a build up and could risk the gelcoat pulling away from the mould before your ready to pull out the panel, which would leave it warped. You could also risk print through to the outside of the panel
where you would see the lines of the straight edges of the fiberglass sheets. That could also happen if your gelcoat is not thick enough. It can be avoided by doing one thicker coat then a thin one once that has gone off to cover anything you've missed. Also put a layer of fiberglass tissue down on the back of the gelcoat before starting with the fiberglass sheets.
Hope this helps you make your mind up which one to go with. ;D

[spyhunter2k]

Benefits can still be obtained using CF impregnated with RTC (room temperature cure) epoxy resins, as to my knowledge only the highest end operations use an autoclave. All the other users of CF still are doing so for a reason. The extra pressure and heat from a multi-million dollar autoclave can increase the extent of CF's advantage over FG, but even without autoclaving, the advantage is still there. It just becomes a matter of asking if the extra advantage is worth the significant increase in price. I was just watching a special on making sailboards where CF was used for localized reinforcement. Actually I may do the same-make the bulk of the nose in FG but lay strips of CF along the inner creases to add stiffness.

I have used epoxy resin with fiberglass, and you're dead-on about the increased difficulty in fully wetting out the glass fibrils. Epoxy resin is much thicker and must be forced into the fabric, whereas polyester resin normally soaks in quite readily. But the epoxy resin/glass cloth (or mat) combo is great for patching rusted out holes in metal panels, as epoxy resin is an excellent adhesive, and it shrinks 40% less that polyester resin, which is actually a poor adhesive (it may stick today, but it could delaminate in a few years).

Yes, I was referring to torn/shredded edged mat when I mentioned overlapping, though I've overlapped cloth with no problems. I've really gotten away from using cloth much, as it is much harder to work into a curved shape than mat. Once the weak binder holding the random fibers in the mat dissolves, you can push/pull the material around into the irregularities of the mold with relative ease.