Tony King wrote: >>You say it's simple, and maybe you're right, but from the perspective of an absolute beginner it seems to me there could be a lot more work in getting it just so than some of the alternatives. Thus the attraction of materials like ply or aluminum.<<
I think a lot of the fear and loathing of fiberglass construction arises from people's experience with polyester resin from the auto parts or department store. That stuff stinks, has a very short time to cure, and is very sensitive to warm temperatures, such as your hands. If you mix up any usable quantity, it starts setting before you even get it squeegeed into the fabric, and then you've got a sticky smelly mess on your hands. You can't even let go of it because it's stuck to your hands and is unmanageable. I suspect we all learned about "fiberglass layups" like this, but today's aero-type epoxies have working times like 30 minutes, and even then, you have plenty of warning that you need to be finishing up or moving further on. After a while you learn that for big stuff like wings, you need to do it in the cool of the day to give yourself plenty of working time. No biggie. Repairing glass is child's play compared to something like aluminum. A few minutes of cutting, patching with micro or flox, and then overlaying with glass is simple and when you're done, nobody can tell it. The repair part of aluminum can be done a little quicker, but you'll never end up with a repair that is "just so"...it will be likely be obvious forever as a "patch". Having said that, I do have some very thin plywood for experimentation on my next plane... Mark Langford ML at N56ML.com website at http://www.N56ML.com --------------------------------------------------------
