1. I like working with plywood and I like that something like Finnish birch plywood from managed forests is a renewable resource. Spruce, on the other hand, gets more expensive all the time and the best of comes from old growth trees...not renewable in the short term.
2. I don't really like working with composites, but I do like the high strength and low weight associated with carbon fiber or the crashworthiness of a Kevlar tub around the pilot. I especially don't like large quantities of itchy fiberglass and stinky resin.
3. I have built small boats using the "tack-and-tape" method in which plywood is cut to predetermined shapes, tacked together and then the edges of the plywood bonded together with fiberglass tape. I have also seen but not used myself the "stitch-and-glue" method in which the edges are "sewn" together with twists of wire and then the glass applied over the wire.
4. Pulling these random thoughts together, what about using carbon fiber tape to assemble an aircraft or subassembly made of essentially plywood components? For example, a box spar could be made of four sheets of plywood bonded along the edges with carbon tape, essentially creating four carbon angles joined by the plywood webs. A similar system could be used to replace the longerons in the fuselage. It might make sense in some applications to use pre-cured carbon angle, strip or sheet bonded in place whether commercially produced or made up in advance by the builder. If commercially produced that would avoid much of the unpleasantness of working with composite layups
5. Such a method might be an easier, faster, lower-cost alternative to some of the pre-cured composite sandwich panel techniques discussed previously in various threads. It would lend itself to easy kit production as well, with CAM laser-cut plywood like a balsa model.
OK, fireproof undies are on, what are the pros and cons of such a system? Has anyone messed around with anything like this?
Cheers,
Matthew
2. I don't really like working with composites, but I do like the high strength and low weight associated with carbon fiber or the crashworthiness of a Kevlar tub around the pilot. I especially don't like large quantities of itchy fiberglass and stinky resin.
3. I have built small boats using the "tack-and-tape" method in which plywood is cut to predetermined shapes, tacked together and then the edges of the plywood bonded together with fiberglass tape. I have also seen but not used myself the "stitch-and-glue" method in which the edges are "sewn" together with twists of wire and then the glass applied over the wire.
4. Pulling these random thoughts together, what about using carbon fiber tape to assemble an aircraft or subassembly made of essentially plywood components? For example, a box spar could be made of four sheets of plywood bonded along the edges with carbon tape, essentially creating four carbon angles joined by the plywood webs. A similar system could be used to replace the longerons in the fuselage. It might make sense in some applications to use pre-cured carbon angle, strip or sheet bonded in place whether commercially produced or made up in advance by the builder. If commercially produced that would avoid much of the unpleasantness of working with composite layups
5. Such a method might be an easier, faster, lower-cost alternative to some of the pre-cured composite sandwich panel techniques discussed previously in various threads. It would lend itself to easy kit production as well, with CAM laser-cut plywood like a balsa model.
OK, fireproof undies are on, what are the pros and cons of such a system? Has anyone messed around with anything like this?
Cheers,
Matthew
