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Wing Structures.

Posted: Mon Nov 22, 2010 1:11 pm
by Bill McCarthy
Has anyone had experience of hot wiring closed cell foam slabs in order to reduce volume and hence weight. I can understand the process for cutting external wing chord forms but is it possible to pierce through a slab, then hot wire segments and push them out.

Posted: Mon Nov 22, 2010 4:05 pm
by Ian Melville
I've done it for model aircraft. There are two ways to do it
1. Cut in from the outside, around your template and back out he same slit. Use a bit of resin slury in the joint, and be careful not to distort it while the slury goes off (Put in the outside off cut foam as a jig)
2. Pearce the center of the cutouts with a drill and drop the dismantled hot wire through (when cold of course :roll: ) Connect it up and cut yer ole. Repeat for each cut out.

The second method is a lot harder an requires templates for each hole as well as the airfoil shape. IIRC Europas use the first method. In theory you could use a single template