Today's Message Index:
----------------------
1. 07:37 AM - Re: What should a fiberglass cowling weigh? (Phillips, Jack)
2. 08:47 AM - Re: What should a fiberglass cowling weigh? (Gordon Bowen)
3. 09:21 AM - Re: What should a fiberglass cowling weigh? (Brian Kraut)
4. 11:23 AM - What should a fiberglass cowling weigh? (Steve Glass)
5. 12:04 PM - Re: What should a fiberglass cowling weigh? (KMHeide, BA, CPO, FAAOP)
6. 12:43 PM - Re: What should a fiberglass cowling weigh? (Gordon Bowen)
7. 12:59 PM - Re: What should a fiberglass cowling weigh? (Gene & Tammy)
8. 02:22 PM - Re: build vid (jimd)
9. 02:39 PM - building log--keeping it simple (Cuy, Michael D. (GRC-RXD0)[ASRC])
10. 02:57 PM - Re: What should a fiberglass cowling weigh? (jimd)
11. 04:45 PM - Jack Textor's Control Horns ()
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Subject: | What should a fiberglass cowling weigh? |
Ben, like most things the answer is - "it depends". It depends on how
much your airplane weighs, on how short your home field is, how much YOU
weigh, and a number of other factors. As I've indicated before on this
list, I consider my Pietenpol to be too heavy at 745 lbs empty. Have I
done anything about it? Not a thing, other than to add 5 lbs to my own
useless load over Thanksgiving.
Most Piets are tail heavy and having an additional 7 ot 8 pounds on the
nose will mean you won't have to shift your wing quite as far aft as you
would otherwise. Watch the weight in other areas and you should be
fine. Areas where you can compensate include using lightweight fabric
on your fuselage and tail surfaces. In addition to the fabric itself
being lighter, the lightweight fabric doesn't require as many coats of
dope or polyspray to fill the weave, and the weight of the finish coats
can easily exceed the weight of the fabric. When I recover mine
(hopefully not for another 25 years) that is what I will do, and I sure
won't be using polyurethane paint. That stuff is incredibly heavy.
I'll bet I'm carrying around at least 40 lbs of paint on my Piet.
Good luck,
Jack Phillips
NX899JP
Raleigh, NC
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pietenpol-list-server@matronics.com
[mailto:owner-pietenpol-list-server@matronics.com] On Behalf Of Ben
Charvet
Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2007 7:30 PM
Subject: Pietenpol-List: What should a fiberglass cowling weigh?
<bcharvet@bellsouth.net>
Well, after 3 months of on again, off again work I've successfully
removed my fiberglass cowling from the male plug mold that I made. I
laminated it up from 4 layers of fiberglass cloth using polyester resin,
as described in the Tony Bingelis books, under the chapter "How to make
a Fiberglass cowling, if you must". Now I know what ole Tony was
talking about. It actually looks pretty nice and has some nice compound
curves that would be impossible (for me) to duplicate in aluminum. What
concerns me is it weighs 10 pounds. I have a J-3 aluminum cowl on my
Baby Ace, and it only weighs about 2 pounds. The cub cowl is about 4
inches too short to fit my Piet, so that wasn't an option. I'll try to
post a few pictures in the next few days, but what do you guys think
about the weight?
Ben Charvet
Mims, Fl
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Subject: | Re: What should a fiberglass cowling weigh? |
Ben,
Jack Phillips answer is probably right on the money. "it depends". Heck,
because of my weight I had to move the entire engine 4" forward to get a
good CG., a big heavy cowling would probably do me good. But back to
lightweight correctly made composite parts. You can make a composite
cowling just as light as the AL on the cubbie BUT, lots of techniques and
tricks involved. A) People who don't do a lot of composite parts always
ALWAYS use too much resin. It makes the part nice and smooth looking, but
makes it heavy. The resin doesn't make the part strong, the fabric does. I
ran the composites workshop at Oshkosh for several years and the one key
observation I came away with after watching 100's of novice potential
composite homebuilders try their skills on trial composite
parts.....homebuilders always want to use too much resin on their parts.
One part by weight fabric to one part by weight mixed resin is a good
laminate. 40% resin is better, but hard to do without vacuum bagging. B)
Resin choice... Polyester resins tend to go on heavier than two part
epoxies, making a resin rich heavy part. Polyesters resins belong on things
like shower stalls not on airplanes. C) Carbon fabrics are lighter than
fiberglass. Kevlar is lighter than carbon, but harder to work with. But
choice of weave of fiberglass is important to get smooth finish without too
much resin, open box weaves suck up a lot of resin. Try a tight closed
satin weave like 7781, 3783 glass or 613 style in carbon. D) If you can,
get a look at the first 10 pages of the instructions for a Longeze or Cozy.
See if anyone in your EAA Chapter will let you read the intro by Rutan or
Nat Puffer on how to get a lightweight composite laminate. Then try again
with carbon weave 613 and epoxy to make your part on the plug, you'll be
much happier with the result.
Gordon
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ben Charvet" <bcharvet@bellsouth.net>
Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2007 3:29 PM
Subject: Pietenpol-List: What should a fiberglass cowling weigh?
>
> Well, after 3 months of on again, off again work I've successfully removed
> my fiberglass cowling from the male plug mold that I made. I laminated it
> up from 4 layers of fiberglass cloth using polyester resin, as described
> in the Tony Bingelis books, under the chapter "How to make a Fiberglass
> cowling, if you must". Now I know what ole Tony was talking about. It
> actually looks pretty nice and has some nice compound curves that would be
> impossible (for me) to duplicate in aluminum. What concerns me is it
> weighs 10 pounds. I have a J-3 aluminum cowl on my Baby Ace, and it only
> weighs about 2 pounds. The cub cowl is about 4 inches too short to fit my
> Piet, so that wasn't an option. I'll try to post a few pictures in the
> next few days, but what do you guys think about the weight?
>
> Ben Charvet
> Mims, Fl
>
>
>
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Subject: | What should a fiberglass cowling weigh? |
Sounds a bit heavy. Depending on how you did it you may have a lot of resin
on the inside or outside or both. You might be able to sand a good bit of
it away before you get to the glass. Then again, you might have a lot of
resin inside the glass layers and might not be able to sand away much.
Brian Kraut
Engineering Alternatives, Inc.
www.engalt.com
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pietenpol-list-server@matronics.com
[mailto:owner-pietenpol-list-server@matronics.com]On Behalf Of Ben
Charvet
Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2007 7:30 PM
Subject: Pietenpol-List: What should a fiberglass cowling weigh?
Well, after 3 months of on again, off again work I've successfully
removed my fiberglass cowling from the male plug mold that I made. I
laminated it up from 4 layers of fiberglass cloth using polyester resin,
as described in the Tony Bingelis books, under the chapter "How to make
a Fiberglass cowling, if you must". Now I know what ole Tony was
talking about. It actually looks pretty nice and has some nice compound
curves that would be impossible (for me) to duplicate in aluminum. What
concerns me is it weighs 10 pounds. I have a J-3 aluminum cowl on my
Baby Ace, and it only weighs about 2 pounds. The cub cowl is about 4
inches too short to fit my Piet, so that wasn't an option. I'll try to
post a few pictures in the next few days, but what do you guys think
about the weight?
Ben Charvet
Mims, Fl
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Subject: | What should a fiberglass cowling weigh? |
Hi
It seems to me it would make sense to wax up the existing cowl and use that
as a plug to make a new female mold. Then different cowlings could be pro
duced
Knowing the surface area a layed up weight can be calculated. In the boat
business we would use glass "cloth ranging in weights from 1 oz to 32 oz de
pending on the application. I would think a 3/4 oz mat and 18 oz roving wi
th some local stiffners or some balsa core would be a good starting point.
A lot of work for a few lbs of weight that will probably be in the right pl
ace anyways.
Steve snowed in in Maine with more coming this weekend.
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Subject: | What should a fiberglass cowling weigh? |
Ben,
If you are truly wanting an opinion about the weight of your cowling compared
to man other fiberglass cowlings....I have your answer!
The company, Fiberglass Specialties, Inc. Attn: Bob Snell located in Watertown,
South Dakota is a manufacturer of fiberglass cowlings for most of the aviation
industry! In his shop he has done cowlings for most of the airplanes you
can mention. He is a great resource for information and he can also take special
orders, one offs and many other things you may need. As for pricing...extremely
fair and very reasonable. He is in business to have customers....not chase
them away! I can assure you he can tell you if your cowling is within weight
limits compared to the many he has done.
Here is his phone number 605-886-9206 and please use my name and the pietenpol
plane. He will remember. I stumbled upon him while in town killing time before
a meeting and was wowed at his operation and the many cowling he does for aircraft
manufacturers.
Finally.... no information should be given without an exchange for ride in your
pietenpol....deal? tee-hee-hee
Ken H
"Phillips, Jack" <Jack.Phillips@cardinalhealth.com> wrote:
Ben, like most things the answer is - "it depends". It depends on how
much your airplane weighs, on how short your home field is, how much YOU
weigh, and a number of other factors. As I've indicated before on this
list, I consider my Pietenpol to be too heavy at 745 lbs empty. Have I
done anything about it? Not a thing, other than to add 5 lbs to my own
useless load over Thanksgiving.
Most Piets are tail heavy and having an additional 7 ot 8 pounds on the
nose will mean you won't have to shift your wing quite as far aft as you
would otherwise. Watch the weight in other areas and you should be
fine. Areas where you can compensate include using lightweight fabric
on your fuselage and tail surfaces. In addition to the fabric itself
being lighter, the lightweight fabric doesn't require as many coats of
dope or polyspray to fill the weave, and the weight of the finish coats
can easily exceed the weight of the fabric. When I recover mine
(hopefully not for another 25 years) that is what I will do, and I sure
won't be using polyurethane paint. That stuff is incredibly heavy.
I'll bet I'm carrying around at least 40 lbs of paint on my Piet.
Good luck,
Jack Phillips
NX899JP
Raleigh, NC
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pietenpol-list-server@matronics.com
[mailto:owner-pietenpol-list-server@matronics.com] On Behalf Of Ben
Charvet
Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2007 7:30 PM
Subject: Pietenpol-List: What should a fiberglass cowling weigh?
Well, after 3 months of on again, off again work I've successfully
removed my fiberglass cowling from the male plug mold that I made. I
laminated it up from 4 layers of fiberglass cloth using polyester resin,
as described in the Tony Bingelis books, under the chapter "How to make
a Fiberglass cowling, if you must". Now I know what ole Tony was
talking about. It actually looks pretty nice and has some nice compound
curves that would be impossible (for me) to duplicate in aluminum. What
concerns me is it weighs 10 pounds. I have a J-3 aluminum cowl on my
Baby Ace, and it only weighs about 2 pounds. The cub cowl is about 4
inches too short to fit my Piet, so that wasn't an option. I'll try to
post a few pictures in the next few days, but what do you guys think
about the weight?
Ben Charvet
Mims, Fl
_________________________________________________
or otherwise private information. If you have received it in error, please notify
the sender
Dansk - Deutsch - Espanol - Francais - Italiano - Japanese - Nederlands - Norsk
- Portuguese
Kenneth M. Heide, BA, CPO, FAAOP
---------------------------------
Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your homepage.
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Subject: | Re: What should a fiberglass cowling weigh? |
Steve,
Think using roving will absolutely make a very heavy composite part,
never used in composite homebuilts for skins. Like the idea of using
the current part as a female mold. Two plies of 6 oz. carbon with "hat
sections" using 3 lb/cubic ft foam core where stiffeners are needed,
does the trick. Carbon is stiff anyway, stiffen the edges where the
two or three parts come apart is all that is needed on a 200 mph Cozy or
Longeze. A Piete at 70 mph wouldn't need that much. Next time anyone
sees a Longeze or better yet a Glassair on the flightline, give the
cowling a good looking over. The skins are very thin with stiffener
around the air outlet and inlet lips meet fuselage and along where the
side piano hinge is laminated in. (pull the hinge pins and a couple
screws to remove the cowl)
Gordon
----- Original Message -----
From: Steve Glass
To: pietenpol-list@matronics.com
Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2007 10:23 AM
Subject: Pietenpol-List: What should a fiberglass cowling weigh?
Hi
It seems to me it would make sense to wax up the existing cowl and use
that as a plug to make a new female mold. Then different cowlings could
be produced
Knowing the surface area a layed up weight can be calculated. In the
boat business we would use glass "cloth ranging in weights from 1 oz to
32 oz depending on the application. I would think a 3/4 oz mat and 18
oz roving with some local stiffners or some balsa core would be a good
starting point.
A lot of work for a few lbs of weight that will probably be in the
right place anyways.
Steve snowed in in Maine with more coming this weekend.
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Subject: | Re: What should a fiberglass cowling weigh? |
Ben, Before you become too concerned about your cowling weight, do a W & B
to see if you need the additional weight up front. A lot of Piets are tail
heavy and a heavy cowling may be a blessing.
Just a thought
Gene
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Idea of having build video's is great.
Not very practical. Start to finish you might have 1000-2000 hrs of video, maybe
a bit more or less.
However.. no one I know would watch 1000 hrs of video.
To edit video and make something useful out of it you typically make at least three
passes watching and editing each part, and most the material ends up being
cut.
The idea of not having to do anything to capture the video is questionable, as
you would need a camera man keeping the right thing in the picture, zooming in
when needed, etc.
What you could do is to map out your activities ahead of time, and figure out what
you want to capture, then capture it, adding all those things that happen
that you didn't count on. Time wise that would amount to editing before you capture,
and would reduce your 1000+ hrs of video to a small fraction of that (100
hrs-200hrs maybe), would force you to think it out ahead of time to.
I am building my first plane and find it challenging to keep up a build log, get
digital pictures, track expenses and still have enough time to get work done
with all the zillion things that come up. So my experience is not from building
planes, its from my work. At work I have to document how I built computer monitoring
systems that are big and complex and take as long as a year to build.
For that I have found it works far better to break project into key pieces,
figure out what someone would need to know to accomplish the key things, then
document those. It takes me about a week of total time to pull together a systems
document from all my notes I do during that year of building a system. (Course
its software so I can take all my pictures at the end, for construction you
would need to do it during the build.) With Still pics I think this approach
would work pretty good. Video is much harder to do well, setting up a camera
and going in front of it to do stuff will suprise you, you will probably not
be happy with one take, but will want to redo and redo the "scenes".
Go for it if you can, but it would distract me from building to much to do it the
way your thinking of doing it. Over the years I have written about twenty-five
aprox 300 page books of documentation for my work, and its been manageable.
Only one project did I use video's, and it took about 5-6 times as long and
I hated the sound of my voice on them.
Just some things to think about.
Good luck,
Jim
Read this topic online here:
http://forums.matronics.com/viewtopic.php?p=152018#152018
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Subject: | building log--keeping it simple |
My building log tools consisted of three things:
1) yellow sticky note pads
2) a couple accordion manila file folders
3) camera
If you have a camera with a date stamp you can skip item 1.
I would order what I needed from Wicks, ACS, or Dillsburg Aero or even
the hardware store and file those invoices under several different
folders like: Airframe, Engine & prop, Covering, Instruments.
I would take pics once in a while of my progress using the yellow sticky
note on the parts or assembly to date the event.
When my inspection came I had the folders with all of my purchases
spread out neatly and my photos pasted on some white posterboards in
chronological order. Simple as that. Nothing elaborate is necessary
at all and if it it, get a different DAR or inspector or read the regs
and fight them at the nearest MIDO office.
Mike C.
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Subject: | Re: What should a fiberglass cowling weigh? |
Have similar concern. My cowling has a big oval opening on it that needs some kind
of cover over it. (Opening is about two foot long and a foot wide.) My engine
is a 125hp ENMA Tigre with a couple giant magnetos on the top of the back
end of the engine.
First thought was lay something about as thick as the clearance I need over the
mags and engine, then make a dam around the opening and use the shape as a male
mold to make the big hood bump thing out of fiberglass. To be able to access
the mags without removing the whole cowling the bump would have to sit on top
of the aluminum cowling. Then there would need to be some kind of fasteners,
that would attach the bump to the cowling, and a means of dealing with fiberglass
not expanding contracting at same rate as aluminum. Also the design is vintage
1930's, but a glass bump is more 1970's.
So, I started looking in to what it would take to make a bump out of aluminum,
and watched some you tube video's on aluminum forming. Turns out compound curves
can be made with a good deal of effort, people that are in to that kind of
thing can make reproduction Ryan radial cowlings from sheet aluminum, complete
with the bumps for each cylinder.
I spent the last 2 days trying to take my aluminum leading edge for the center
section of the wing and polish it out like a mirror. (Plan on having wood polyurethaned
and natural looking, and the aluminum shiny, rather than covering it
like everyone else does.) Its taken 3 times the work I thought it would and I
am only half done. Will have about a week in getting the center section pretty
by the time I am done. Should make my plane distinctive, but I can tell you
now there are no Luscombes or Swifts in my future.
My point being that aluminum is light, and can be made pretty, but it takes a lot
of work to make something curvy and nice out of it. Flat pieces rivet together
quick, and paint pretty easy, but its hard to get something that looks really
nice without a lot of effort in the design or the construction or both. The
factories tend to use a fiberglass nose bowl so they can have some compound
curves, then make the bulk of the cowling out of fairly simple flat aluminum sheet.
If you already sank the time in to making a mold and your cowling looks good, then
move on to something else. When your plane is done you can always revisit
it. How many hrs and $$ will it take to save how many pounds? Do you have big
flat areas on your cowling that could be replaced with aluminum? Maybe your curvy
part could serve as a nose bowl.
I have been looking for a simple aluminum hood scoop design made up of all flat
pieces or with very easy to do compound parts. So far no luck. But rather than
dwell on it I am moving on.
Jim
Read this topic online here:
http://forums.matronics.com/viewtopic.php?p=152030#152030
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Subject: | Jack Textor's Control Horns |
Jack,
I was looking at the photos on your web page (www.textors.com) and noticed
you
have some good looking control horns. Would you please share with us
how you formed the control horns.
Chris Tracy
Sacramento, Ca
Website at http://www.WestCoastPiet.com
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