Quote:
Originally Posted by turbothrush
Hi , 3-Wheeler
Congrats on a fantastic project. In a previous post I think you said you used mostly 6 oz cloth. I was wondering how many layers of 6 oz. on the outside. I am planing a project of my own and was thinking 3 layers of 6 oz. on the outside and maybe just 1 or possibly 2 layers on the inside. Any suggestions ?
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Hi Turbo,
Yes. The entire outside of the tail has only one layer of 6 ounce glass.
All the exposed edges has a layer of 2 ounce glass, just for protection. These edges are those that come close to the stock bodywork of the car for example.
Where things get a little more complicated are the high stress areas on the INSIDE of the fairing.
Any place where there is some type of mounting going on, there are multiple layers, and in some cases five layers of 6 ounce glass. The fifth layer is about one foot square and covers the embedded wood and metal fasteners inside the wood.
The idea is to fan out the stress out to a wider area in such a way that eventually one layer can support the loads.
This same technique was used to make a full coverage motorcycle fairing that weighed only 13 pounds and is still going strong after almost 20 years of use.
If you make good use of 2 inch thick foam and design the structure correctly, you should easily get by with only one layer of glass over *most* of the surfaces, and then build-up dramatically at any contact points.
Of course careful use of epoxy really helps as well, as the epoxy gives about 30% more strength in bending than wetting out the cloth with Elmer's Wood Glue. Yes, I have prepared samples and measured this. By the way; for those who are very penny conscious Elmer's glue was used on the motorcycle fairing. Just make sure it's sealed against moisture.
Hope this helps, and good luck. Jim.