We are trying something new this year, attempting our own composite layups of both the body tubes and the fins.
The approach for the body tubes was simple: Just wrap the fiberglass around the tubes, rubbing the epoxy into it and rubbing the air bubbles and defects out along the way. We made five layers on the body tubes, and they turned out fairly well.
For the fins, we are laying up sheets of 1/8th inch fiberglass. This was quite simple, but labor-intensive. It involved cutting out many layers of fiberglass cloth, stacking them neatly inside vacuum bags, sucking all the air out, and then injecting the epoxy, impregnating it into the fiberglass weave. It was quite the experience, and only took a couple hours. Now all we need to do is cut the fins out and sand the airfoils into them.
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