Marc Davis
Member
Ok, I've had this idea bugging me for a while so I guess I need to air it out.
I'm a big CNC machin geek. To prove it I have 13,000 lbs of cast iron holding down my shop floor. Well, once you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
How about a plane, something like a Wittman Tailwind. The idea would be to build the whole thing from CNC routered plywood. The pieces would fit together tab A slot B style. The corners would come out looking like a box joint with interleaved fingers about 1" long. If you keep going with this idea you can see ways to make almost everything in the wings and fuselage. Skins, ribs, bulkheads, seats, panel, doors, ... all routed plywood. Each fitting into the others tab to slot. Epoxy would be used to glue the pieces together. Epoxy with micro balloon filler or wood corner bracing where needed. It seems like little jigging would be needed because many pieces could be dry fitted together before gluing started. Designing and debugging the first plane would be a big job but after that, anyone could just whip out another one (ha ha). Anyway, it seems like CNC would allow plywood to be cut in ways that would have been too time consuming and difficult in the past.
I hope I've explained my idea well enough. I'd love to hear peoples thought. With any luck some will point out a major flaw and save me a lot of time and energy
Marc
I'm a big CNC machin geek. To prove it I have 13,000 lbs of cast iron holding down my shop floor. Well, once you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
How about a plane, something like a Wittman Tailwind. The idea would be to build the whole thing from CNC routered plywood. The pieces would fit together tab A slot B style. The corners would come out looking like a box joint with interleaved fingers about 1" long. If you keep going with this idea you can see ways to make almost everything in the wings and fuselage. Skins, ribs, bulkheads, seats, panel, doors, ... all routed plywood. Each fitting into the others tab to slot. Epoxy would be used to glue the pieces together. Epoxy with micro balloon filler or wood corner bracing where needed. It seems like little jigging would be needed because many pieces could be dry fitted together before gluing started. Designing and debugging the first plane would be a big job but after that, anyone could just whip out another one (ha ha). Anyway, it seems like CNC would allow plywood to be cut in ways that would have been too time consuming and difficult in the past.
I hope I've explained my idea well enough. I'd love to hear peoples thought. With any luck some will point out a major flaw and save me a lot of time and energy
Marc
