Hello All
I have been out of speed for almost 50 years and now I want to dip the toes in the water! I built an Arkansas traveller for McCoy 60 spark power. When I had finished carving the balsa fuselage, I had just about had enough of carving for the rest of my life! It struck me that it would have been quicker to carve a solid fuselage and used that to make a couple of female moulds, one could then layup the fiuselage halves (top and bottom). It may well take just as long to do this as to make a conventional fuselage, but at least making further duplicates (read crash damage!) would be simple and quick!
I have a composite fuselage stunter (not made by me) and it is a lot heavier than the balsa equivalent. Is this the reason for not going this route? However, using carbon fiber, I would think that you could build down to a weight, by not using so much epoxy or polyester and relying on the carbon fiber for strength?
I may well be talking out of the back of my head and ignorance is bliss! What do the experienced say?
Regards,
Andrew.