I, too, had never done any fiberglass or composite work when I first started getting serious about building an airplane. It was intimidating; the mixing ratios, the stern cautions about getting proportions and temperatures right, getting the weave right, fumes and skin sensitivity, all of that. It wasn't until I visited Mike Mims' hangar and sat in his "Pig" KR project that the hesitations were all swept away in the blink of an eye.
Mike walked over to his worktable, grabbed a piece of foam, laid it down, pumped some resin and hardener into a Dixie cup and mixed it with a stir stick, reached into his scrap bin for a piece of glass cloth, and proceeded to lay down a little bit of micro slurry onto the foam, lay down the glass, wet it out, and it was done. Maybe five minutes. "Hey! I can do that!"... and I did. >From that day on, composite work began to be not only fun but exciting and something I looked forward to. You can shape something out of foam in no time flat, and then glass it and have a rugged airplane part in an amazingly short period of time. With a little patience, it will also be as slick and as curvy as any metal airplane part and a lot tougher than aluminum. Don't let composite work put you off of airplane building. Well, I guess in the interest of full disclosure I should say that the sanding and filling may put you off of it AFTER you've created your composite airplane ;o) Oscar Zuniga San Antonio, TX mailto: taildr...@hotmail.com website at http://www.flysquirrel.net
