Brodhead Pietenpol Association

Original Posted By:
I just gotta share this....I'm doing ash pieces for the straight axle landing gear....Didn'thave a 1 1/4" piece so I'm laminating two 3/4" pieces and will planethat down to size.Just realized I haven't done any vacuum bagging in over 10 years and now I rememberwhy I did in the first place! Perfect pressure all around....NO clamps!Sometime in the near future I'll do a quick article with pictures explaining thesimple and cheap process.Jim in Plano.....________________________________________________________________________________

Original Posted By: Dave and Connie
I went to the city dump and pulled a (free!) refrigerant (freon maybe?) pump outof a refrigerator......I left the rubber shock obsorber feet on it and can barelytell when it cycles on and off...... ----- Original Message -----

Original Posted By: Jim Markle
That's exactly how we laminate wing spars for Skybolts and Pitts' at work - a high-stressapplication if there ever was one. We use FPL-16A, and splice piecesto create pieces for the layers as needed (I think it's a 1:20 slope on thesplice and you always stagger the splices, of course.) Laminated spar test samplescome out at least 25% stronger than a single piece of Sitka Spruce (somesamples make it to 50% stronger), with little to no weight gain, and when theyfail, they do so in stages where you have nearly the same strength after thefirst layer breaks as the single-piece spar has. (The FAA says a laminated pieceis AS strong as a single piece, not stronger, so build to that standard - butrest assured that a proper lamination job will generally add a significantincrease in strength.) Laminated pieces generally won't warp, either. We don'trecommend routed spars at all anymore, nor do we reduce the size of the sparswhen we do laminations.My Piet will probably have laminated spars. Not that I'll be pulling Gs like theSkybolt and Pitts guys do!-MikeMike Whaley merlin@ov-10bronco.netWebmaster, OV-10 Bronco Associationhttp://www.ov-10bronco.net/ ----- Original Message -----