Have a damaged Pica Cessna 172 and just got the same plane in a kit. I'd like to make a duplicate of the kit's 2piece cowl so I can finish repair on the damaged plane. How would I do it? I guess make a mold of some sort and fiberglass maybe?
Fiberglast Corp. makes a good video showing just how to do it.
Alternatively, you can get some Rock Hard Water Putty (Sorry, can't remember the brand) and mold it with that. Make sure you use either several layers of paste wax or commercial mold release agents.
refer to =
Composites Information Covering Models With Fibreglass Cloth by Jim Ryan Fibreglass or make your own FG hull Fibreglass Techniques & Information FibreGlast.Com How To Articles = Spars, Molds, Parts, Skins & U/C How To = Ironsidz Model Car Tech - Resin Casting etc. Molded fuselage pictures The Cheap Little Sucker - make a vacuum pump Vacuum Bagging Wings Water based Polyurethane skin glassing Cowls, Spats, Canopies etc - Manufacturers.
Carbon Copy Fibreglass Specialties Stan's Fibre Tech
and also see:
"Molding & Casting (see also Fibreglass etc)"
Molding & Casting Vacuum Former - make you own and usuage. Vacuum Former - email Alan for home made & DIY canopies etc.
regards Alan T. Alan's Hobby, Model & RC Links
I have successfuly made moulds out of plaster of paris reinforced with cloth.
Have yet to pull a decent glass fibre mould off tho. They always stick :-)
There used to be a company called Fiberglass Masters that would probably have one. They changed their name, and I lost the link, sorry. Good luck. Dr.1 Driver "There's a Hun in the sun!"
We use Plaster of Paris, without any reinforcement but poured into a wooden box around the original, and then coat that with hot paraffin applied with a brush. Floor wax would be better, but it's getting rare. The fiberglass part comes out easily. You have to make sure the mold is designed so that there are no smaller diameters at the top that would trap the original or the duplicate part.
Dan
You mean paraffin wax, as in candles?
Over here we call kerosene, paraffin :-0)
No, the mould is fine. I'll try candle wax.
Smear the outside of the ABS parts with PAM no-stick cooking spray using your hand. Lay-up 2 or 3 plies of 6oz glass with epoxy molding resin, west system works well, over the part. Cure 24 hrs then pop it off, trim, clean, fill, sand, prime, paint. It will be very slightly larger than original but you won't notice. Done many this way. PAM is best mold release I've found anywhere.
Stan's Fiberglass can solve the problem without all the aggavation.
Here's what I did for a broken Fokker D7 cowl....
Tape or glue the broken cowl pieces together again, best you can.
Buy a can of "great stuff" expanding foam from the hardware store.
Spray pieced-together abs cowl with pam, and start to fill with the foam.
However, only do the foam one layer at a time, because if you do the whole cowl at once, the foam on the bottom can't expand because it can't get any air.
Once fully foamed, pull off cowl, and you have a rough negative.
Cover negative with heat-shr> Have a damaged Pica Cessna 172 and just got the same plane in a kit. I'd like
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