Dan wrote: > You don't have to wait for time and a situation from which you cannot > recover. Why not simulate one of the panels in the fuse covered with glass > as you state. Weigh it and a piece of the same size plywood.
And when Justin's done that, he needs to make sure that three layers of glass are at least equal in strength and stiffness to a layer of plywood, which they aren't, especially without a foam core, which he didn't mention. Three layers of glass is awfully flimsy, and there's no way that would hold the sections of something like Dr. Dean's boat together without some wooden structure between the sections, or at least a foam core. Three layers of carbon fiber is practically like skinning it in thin steel, but would cost a fortune, and even that would need some sort of structure between cross-sections. The thing that people miss about making these sexy fuselages is that finishing them is going to be a nightmare compared to a plywood boat. Smoothing the sides of a plywood boat in preparation for paint is a 10 minute no brainer. Smoothing a totally composite boat made up of continously compound curves is going to take months if you want perfection in the final finish. But I've got no room to talk about taking the easy way out, I guess... Mark Langford, Huntsville, AL N56ML at hiwaay.net see KR2S project N56ML at http://home.hiwaay.net/~langford
