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Laminated wing tips


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My current build asks for laminated wing tips. 1/16x1/4 inch. Also a small part of rudder

and horizontal tail

tips. Do I need to build balsa formers , steam individual parts then pin to former ,wait to dry then go on to the next one ? It seems to me a long way of doing this when I can cut said parts from solid balsa. Thanks ps cannot find any thing on utube re this subject

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FB, laminating strips imparts huge strength increases on relatively small sections

And obviously, you can easily form and bend thin strips

A laminate of your 1/16 sheet is more than double the strength of one 1/8 sheet by 1/4

It is a slower process than chucking sheet in, but laminating produces very strong correctly shaped members.

The only short cut would be band sawing 1/8 or 3/16 ply radii, for the tips

But is hugely wasteful

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Laminated wingtips are vastly superior to those cut from sheet. They are quite easy to do. No steaming required, just wet strips of 1/16th sheet one at a time and glue them to the rest with aliphatic resin. Of course, you need some kind of shape jig. The strength to weight ratio of laminated wingtips is astounding.

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On my indoor or lightweight models I add a lamination of 0.006" unidirectional carbon, the next to inner lamination. I use cardboard templates edge wrapped with cling film as suggested above.

I tend to soak in luke warm water for about 30 minutes then draw the wood through my fingers to squeeze out excess water, I use PVA as an adhesive - lots of it but as its damp it just tend to run away (epoxy o the carbon layer). You need to pull the laminations very tight. I use pins in balsa blocks to hold the laminations in. When dry - usually within 12 hours in a shed environment, I then run a few drops of cyano into the seams before I remove the laminate assembly. This hardens the wood quite nicely

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I too like laminated "stuff", Just finished a Great Lakes where all the curved flying bits were laminated instead of the sheet stuff supplied

I use obeche, the stuff you used to cover foam wings with , and like most people "above " I wet them , bend them round a multipin "template and let them dry , then alifatic then all together , I use alifatic as its a lot easier to sand than PVA,

The results are usually bullet proof , I also use the same principle to make skiis for my winter planes !!

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John,

Posted by David Mellor on 09/10/2018 09:37:27:
Posted by john stones 1 on 08/10/2018 22:41:33:

I like adding inside the ribs, makes a strong job.

John, that sounds interesting - how do you do that?

Fit cut inner laminates once the ribs are fitted, and fit in between ribs.

Sorry I can't visualize what you are doing? Could you expand please?

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