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Female Plug/Mold

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AVI

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 25, 2003
Messages
526
Location
Banff, AB
Just curious: the accepted method of construction appears to be to first build a male plug, pull female 'glass molds off the plug, and then to layup the fuselage in the female molds.

Male bucks have been constructed from various materials, including foam covered with 'glass, as with Tony's Corsair 82, and from wood, as evidenced in the Algie website.

What are the possibilities, advantages, and disadvantages of fabricating a female plug out of foam and 'glass or out of wood for each half of the fuselage and finishing it to a high enough standard to be used as the female mold itself, thus eliminating the necessity of pulling female molds?

Now, I realize that a female plug would be more difficult to finish to a high standard than a male plug, and that in the construction of the plug, allowance would have to be made for the skin thickness, but has anybody tried this?

There are examples of the Cozy turtle deck formed in a crude female mold consisting of wood formers with thin wood strips, and the Vision fuselage formed in a similar male mold consisting of wood formers and lathe strips but I'm talking about a fully finished female plug that would be used as a female mold.
 
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