Materials in Australia

[altruistic]

Can anyone from AUS put me on track to a supplier of epoxy and the various foams required? Hopefully in Brisbane?

[raiki]

Ultru

 

I am in Oakey (not started building yet, but have plans) and there is at least one other builder in Brisbane.

 

As for epoxy I was/am going to use west system and there is a supplier in QLD. ATL Composites in South Port (http://www.atlcomposites.com/). The reason I selected West is because there was a supplier in Adelaide (where I was living when I decided to build).

 

As for foam, for all but the wing foam get it from the states. There are probably half a dozen other Aussies on here that will back me up with that. Even Drew, he's a complementary Aussie (American guy living in Melbourne). Use Dow in Sydney for the wing foam (but dont tell em what you are building).

 

There are certainly sources of glass here, but because we are getting foam from the states it makes sense just to get that there too.

 

Drew found some good hoop pine to use instead of spruce for the longerons. Hoop pine is available in lots of places here and is actually an approved (that doesn't mean much) aircraft material here in Aus.

 

Have a look at Kevin Doves web page. It contains sources of gear (incl. some in Aus) and he is in Perth I think. http://home.people.net.au/~dovek/Suppliers.htm

 

Enjoy.

[altruistic]

Ok now is the time to admit it. I'm not building a canard, don't get me wrong I think they are a great aircraft but the strips i'm working from don't suit canards. I'm building a low wing tail dragger but what i am convinced of is that foam sandwich is the cheapest most convenient method of building a high performance homebuilt. I want to try and avoid buying most of my consumables overseas and buy in Australia both from a convenience and price standpoint. A lot of ideas and methods from rutans methods can be adapted straight into my aircraft even though its a different shape. I need to know how to describe these materials to local suppliers, some things are a no brainer and the suppliers recognize the description straight away such as epoxies, but the cloths and foam are a little harder. The more dense and lesser usage foams i can order from the US but im hoping to get the bulk of my blue wing core foam and cloth form AUS. Any comments on price anyone? I hope I don't get kicked of the forum for being a canard quisling

 

regards

 

george

[Cozy1200]

Even Drew, he's a complementary Aussie (American guy living in Melbourne).

One of the ladies at work call me the token American and that every company should have one.

 

Check our Kevin Website and Mine, there's a bunch of stuff there. I think you'll find that it's neither convenent or cheap to buy supplies locally. I've been able to airfreight supplies in cheaper than buying locally (when they where even available)

 

Things to definatly buy locally:

Epoxy. I'm using MGS 285 because that the only MGS available. It's expensive. When I move home, I'll switch to 385 and buy directly from the distrubutor. I'd expect the price to drop in half. IF I EXPECTED to build the entire plane here, I'd probably look at a different epoxy. Raiki Seems to have some good suggestions. The 285 has spoiled me, it very nice to work with.

 

Peel-Ply Check my website for the source, but it's made here in Melbourne and is cheaper than spruce. Don't know why, but it is.

 

Spruce I did use hoop-pine instead of spruce. It was considerably cheaper (by a factor of 10) and only a fraction heavier than spruce.

 

We won't COMPLETELY disregard your questions for not building a canard! With so many unpaved or partially paved strips here, I can appreciate the forethought.

 

 

good luck.

[raiki]

George

 

If you want a low wing tail dragger of foam sandwitch construction you really cant look past the Vision (www.visionaircraft.com). Available in 2 or 4 seats, plans built. similar construction to our canards. I have the preveiw plan set and it looks really good. There are a few being built in Aus (George Lendich in QLD is one off the top of my head, not sure I spelt his name right though).

 

On top of that Steve Rahm is quite open to modifications of his design. I think the only think not tried to date is retracts, however given your mission I think retracts would not be in your ideal profile. Check out www.arrow4graphics.com for Scotts progress. Very informative site.

 

I was torn between the Vision and Cozy, and had I stayed living in country SA I'd say the Vision would have one. However now I live in a more tarmac freindly environment the Cozy is the winner.

[altruistic]

I have been drawing up my own plans gradually over a few years (the maths is horrendous) its taking a while but ive run them past an aero engineer and its doable. Foam sandwich using templates eliminates some serious maths as does compufoil which plots, twists and lofts the bulkheads and wings and shows the position of the spars. Its a completely extravagant aircraft 2 place tandem 160 knot plus cruise 260 hp MTOW 1550 kg flying fuel tank. I'm going to build it bit by bit and test the strength with maths and sandbags per the engineers instructions. Then im going to fly to Oshkosh with the australian made logo on the tail. Call me crazy ive looked at aircraft for years and no one builds what I want. I think i can solve a lot of problems with the group knowledge on these forums as there is a heap of experience with foam sandwich.

[stevemew]

Hi All,

Just new to the forum and asking the same questions really. Where to get stuff.

I posted to another thread and didn't see it pop up so not sure if it went through or not. Lets see if this works this time...

 

Just got my plans this week !

 

Steve Mew

Brisbane

Cozy MK IV #1559

[Hennie Engelbrecht]

Hi All,

Just new to the forum and asking the same questions really. Where to get stuff

Check out kevin Doves website

http://home.people.net.au/~dovek/Suppliers.htm

Hennie

[longez360]

Hi there,

 

I have Lyc 360 powered Long EZ VH-WEZ here in Melbourne which I built both here in Aus and in the USA. I have 200 hours on the aircraft.

 

I have used a variety of room temp cure resin systems for laminating the rutan BID and UND, and 282 style Carbon on my aircraft.

 

In Aus I would use:

 

1. MGS L285/H285 available from Ironbark composites in Torquay VIC

2. Araldite K3600, available from Muery in VIC

.....

....

...

..

10000000. West System Epoxy.

 

I would not use West System Epoxy for any given task on your aircraft. It is an apalling resin system for laminating. It will give very poor quality layups in terms of fibre volume fraction, fibre straightness, fibre nesting (the other reason we squeegee), and as a cured laminate will have average structural properties. It results in poor quality layups even for experienced users. . I would not use it for dry micro either. Stick to the plans methods. 'Easy to sand' = 'erosive in rain'. Cory Bird has it right.

 

I have used/tested Safe-T-Poxy, Safe-T-Poxy II, EZPoxy (my second favourite, same as Safe-T), MGS L285/H285 (superb), PTM&W Proset, West system, and K3600 Araldite.

 

Cheers

 

Wayne

0437 674 648

[Spodman]

Have found a reasonable source of Divinycell, with a branch in QLD, main office in NSW. http://www.nupol.com.au/branches look under Products/Cores. For example they will sell me a 1220 x 2440 sheet of 10mm H45 PVC for AUD109.74, compared to AUD30.90 from ASS for a third of a sheet (3/8 x 32 x 48"). This means I'll spend AUD658 for all the 10mm H45 I need for a Cozy, compared to AUD556 from Aircraft Spruce.

 

Delivery for an order is AUD60 to the VIC distributor, for any package under 300mm thick, free if more! This compares most favourably to Drew's experience of the cost of importing this stuff direct from the US. To help reach the 300mm I intend to substitute PVC for Last-a-Foam, which Nat approves of and is now cheaper through Nupol. I'll also substitute PVC for the NACA duct Urethane, sold by Drew's video on the issue, that'll cost a little more.

 

They also have Urethane foam, but I mentioned the word "aircraft" so he didn't want to discuss it. Oops, (thinks: next time don't ring after the night shift and have a cover story ready - I couldn't think of anything on the spot...) I might try again when I'm ready to order, saying I need it for making male molds & cowling lips, etc. but I need it for the nose also... On the other hand they are completely cool with selling the Divinycel for making an aircraft!

 

Dow have a local branch dealing in Styrofoam pipe insulation billets, check out www.dow.com for a QLD branch. I gather floatation billets are easier to get without mentioning the magic word above. I haven't tried yet, haven't thought out the cover story yet, any ideas anybody? These things are really bulky and would be great to trim out of my ASS order. I don't want to substitute anything, though heaps of others have used the FB that I don't want to.

 

The only foam I intend to get from ASS is the one-off stuff where I only need a part of a sheet, like the H100 PVC for the elevator hinge points, and the seatback, (though if Drew still has his spare I'll make a firm offer of $60 for it, and take it next plane day!)

[longez360]

I'd avoid using urethane if building again. I'd use divinycell. Urethane is a poor core system with a torrid history on the vari eze airframe. I used styrofoam for the nose on my aircraft - hotwire templates are way faster and way more accurate than a sanding block. I used urethane in my centresection spar, but would use Divinycell PVC.

[Cozy1200]

The only foam I intend to get from ASS is the one-off stuff where I only need a part of a sheet, like the H100 PVC for the elevator hinge points, and the seatback, (though if Drew still has his spare I'll make a firm offer of $60 for it, and take it next plane day!)

SOLD. That's if it'll get you started. So are you starting?

[Spodman]

So are you starting?

Had a bit of a setback last week. Tried to pin down SWMBO about how to define when the extension to the lounge room is finished, as I still have some painting & exterior work to do and the weather isn't helping. Apparantly it includes a kitchen.... My plan is to make F28 first anyhow, smaller bit to throw away than the seatback I reckon, assuming I bollix it up.

 

I hadn't thought of Styrofoam for the nose, sounds reasonable. That would leave Urethane (that stays in the airframe) on the leading edges of the strakes (where styrofoam would not be a good idea) around the forward edge of the canopy/fuselage top and the canard cover and landing gear cover. How much harder would the PVC be to work in those situations?

[longez360]

I used styrofoam for the nose (sides, bottom and top), the canard fairing, the area aft of the canard, the canopy rails, all the way back to the firewall. Was able to hotwire slightly oversize the whole lot, sand the last 0.100 then glass the entire peice, stem to stern, concurrently. The canard cover area and canopy leading edge was already glassed so I flow cornered those locations and knife trimmed out my canard and canopy. Everything fits with a knife trim thickness, no micro. This gave me good lines from pitot tube to firewall.. The nose was hotwired with templates, which gave me clear boundries to adhere to when sanding.

 

My strakes are hollow d-noses. PVC. If per plans, I'd stack PVC. Although styrofoam is affected by AVGAS, I believe it would need to penetrate PVC laminated both sides. I don't see a problem there, if done correctly. PVC is best however.

[Spodman]

Thanks Wayne, I'm encouraged to do likewise and dispense with the Urethane. Can I cadge some more hints on the techniques you used to create your beautiful machine? It is sorta on topic because we are dealing with materials in Oz...

 

Can I ask how you actually hot-wired the nose? My attachment indicates how I think that would work, unless you have some sort of 3-dimensional template? Or did you carve it up with a little wire-saw like peeling a potato until it looked right?

 

How did you create the foam frame around the forward part and sides of the canopy?

[longez360]

Well I guess mine is one way of doing it, and there are certainly endless ways on some incredibly beautiful machines out there. I am a geometry nut, and love mathematics so I used it endlessly to create lines all over the aeroplane. It's overkill I know but I loved building my Long EZ...

 

For the nose (and my new downdraft cowls where I hotwired out 90% of the upper cowl) I jigged up convex (male) templates each side of the nose and ran the hotwire down. I did the same for the plan view. I then drew a centreline from pitot to canopy centre, and level lines from the pitot to fuse side. I was careful not to sand into these lines. The bottom was different. The NG30's have an decreasing radius going with FS reduction, so I kept that same rule. The curve continued to get tighter. I think it was 11" longer total. Long time ago, I was 21 (35 now).. I did peel the potato on the radii. The plan there is to grow the pitot radius back to the curve on F22 lower corners at the same rate. I was a nut about blending radii into flat areas. If you don't do it on a line, you see the dents in the sun. I was absolutely sure I didnt want that. That's why it took 16 years to build! :-)) The top is a blend back to the canopy rails. The foam frame was 6" long hotwired oversize sections. I used micro and a small dob of 5 minute at the interfaces. This way I didn't have to wait for a cure.

 

So many tips and tricks but we all generate them. I'd hate to have people follow mine and end up with the same thing I have. One of the beauties of our machines is the way you can inject your own character. Every EZ is SO different. I like that a lot. I love the new ideas people have. I have things on my aeroplane that are just plain daft, but I may have done them on the evening of 911 or with my dad who passed away before it flew, so I left them. Lots of memory triggers that remind me of good and bad times. One thing's for certain, the finished result is HUGE fun. It's a real kick in the shorts, particulraly with 195hp and a hertzler climb prop from a MKIV Cozy!!! WOW! :-)

[Spodman]

OK, I'll build it different At least now I can pretend I'm experimenting on nose designs when peeling spuds in the kitchen...

 

I hope Drew Chaplin is getting excited about your machine, started in Melbourne and finished in the US, that is what he is aiming at:)

[stevemew]

Resins in Australia

 

Hi All,

I have a resin question.

 

I know that this dicussion has been going on for some time and have read all there is on the forum but was wondering if there had been any development of late with alternatives....

 

I bought the West 105 / 206 system and started the first layup (started building for the first time yesterday) I thought it was an approved resin for the Cozy as it was listed in the beginning of Chapter 3. On going back to the construction notes in the evening I found a footnote stating NOT to use it for laminating. This was abit of a blow as I have just spent about $500AUD for 20 litres with hardenner. Not to worry I can use it later for other things...

 

So the question is this ? What other alternatives are there here in Australia ?

 

1. MGS locally with in Aus.

I know we can get MGS from Ironbark composites but I refuse to pay the monopoly price they are asking and I have heard from various people who have dealt with them that they are not entirely shall we say good to deal with.

 

2. MGS outside the US.

Does anyone know of any pacific rim distributors ?

And whats the go with getting a HAZMAT clearance to get it into Australia ? is it cost prohibitive ?

 

3. Aeropoxy

Are there any local suppliers of this stuff ?

Has anyone tried it ? Any good ?

 

4. Araldite ?

I heard rumours some are using this

 

4. Vinyl Esters

Was talking with another builder friend who is a very experienced mechanical and aerospace engineer and he suggested Vinyl Ester. They have the same if not better properties over epoxy resin and its a lot cheaper. Has anyone trail blazed here ?

(Derakane 311-350 or Vinyl Ester 470-300)

 

Any thoughts greatly appreciated ?

 

Steve Mew

Cozy IV #1559

SAAA CH 15

Brisbane, AUS

[Cozy1200]

First, congrats on starting. That's one of the hardest parts.

 

1. MGS locally with in Aus.

I know we can get MGS from Ironbark composites but I refuse to pay the monopoly price they are asking and I have heard from various people who have dealt with them that they are not entirely shall we say good to deal with.

 

Although it's expensive, it's not really anymore than from spruce. When I bought mine, it was within a few dollars per gallon of what Spruce was charging. I forget what the exchange rate was at the time. Unfortunately, he only offers the more expensive 285. I'd prefer to use the cheaper 335. DaveB & I both had very good experiences when buying from him.

 

Now if I was building the entire plane in Oz, I don't know if I'd use MGS. It's just so expensive, I'd probably look at other options.

 

First, congrats on starting. That's one of the hardest parts.

 

2. MGS outside the US.

Does anyone know of any pacific rim distributors ?

And whats the go with getting a HAZMAT clearance to get it into Australia ? is it cost prohibitive ?

 

Ironbark is the only OZ distributor.

 

The North American distributor is AirHeart http://www.airheart.on.ca/

I don't know if they'll ship internationally. The Hazmat fees on a relatively small (one plane worth) batch may be prohibitive. When I return home I expect to drive or better yet fly up to their place to pick up some epoxy.

 

May contacting MGS direct may be worth a shot.

 

good luck.

[Hennie Engelbrecht]

Resins in Australia

 

 

I bought the West 105 / 206 system ..........This was abit of a blow as I have just spent about $500AUD for 20 litres with hardenner. Not to worry I can use it later for other things...

 

 

 

Steve Mew

Cozy IV #1559

SAAA CH 15

Brisbane, AUS

No need to be concerned. You can purchace the 209 hardener and together with the 105 resin it forms an approved system. Some use the 105/205 system for tapes. You are still good to go and not all is lost

 

Hennie

[Chris Byrne]

If I were building again I would be using this epoxy by ATL.

KINETIX R246 LOW VISCOSITY

http://www.atlcomposites.com/products/epoxy-resins/laminating/index.htm#

 

ATL used to manufacture PROSET under licence. My bet is this is pretty

similar to PROSET. I looked at the specs in '98 when I started and would have used it then but at the time the rules here in OZ meant that you could not deviate at all from what was used in the plans. I tested it and Nat was willing to test it as well, however it was too much of a problem to ship it to him.

 

I have used a small amount of it on my aircraft.

 

I ended up using MGS 335 which I originally imported myself direct from Stuttgart. At that time I asked to become the distributor here. It (285)became available here soon after through a friend of the people associated with the manufacturer.

 

I believe a couple of builders are using it and that it is considerably cheaper than MGS. And since the #$@% has fallen out of our $ I guess it is even better value.

[Hennie Engelbrecht]

If I were building again I would be using this epoxy by ATL.

KINETIX R246 LOW VISCOSITY

[

I believe a couple of builders are using it and that it is considerably cheaper than MGS. And since the #$@% has fallen out of our $ I guess it is even better value.

Chris

 

Do you have some references that are using Kinetix? I have done some research on the same and came to the conclusion (albeit that of a novice) that it is better than West 105/209.

 

Hennie

[stevemew]

My latest discoveries :

 

ATL Composites - Southport,Gold Coast

-------------------------------------

R246 Kinetix 18Kgs $281.90 inc GST

H128 Fast Hardener 4.5Kgs $148.63 inc GST

 

CG Composites - Hendra, Brisbane

--------------------------------

Ampreg 22 20kgs $433.25 plus GST

Hardener Extra Slow 5.6kgs $227.00 plus GST

 

Araldite LC3600 20kgs $310.00 plus GST

Hardener 6.7kgs $241.00 plus GST

 

 

Jabiru use the Araldite LC3600, its the top of the range stuff.

Ampreg 22 they uise in Germany for Gliders.

Can't find anyone that uses R246 but it looks good on spec. Good Glass transistion, strength and hardness

[ErlendM]

Ampreg 22 they uise in Germany for Gliders.

 

Ampreg 20 (not 22!) has been used in Norway building an E-racer. I am considering to use it on my Cozy as well.

[brainfart]

http://www.ctmat.de/downloads/Ampreg_20.pdf

 

There is a resin called L 20 which is officially approved for glider construction in Germany (and consequently in some neighboring countries), not sure if this really is Ampreg 20 or 22 or some other resin. Will investigate.

 

For resins to be approved for aircraft construction by the LBA (German FAA equivalent) they need to exhibit, among a whole bunch of other (mechanical) requirements a certain glass transition temperature. For gliders I think this is around 55°C, while for "real" powered aircraft that temperature is around 80°C. That L20 resin is only approved for glider construction due to its Tg. Same is true for MGS L335, btw! (*)

 

Which of course doesn't mean they cannot be used for powered aircraft building outside Germany... just saying.

 

For repairs the rule here is the following: use the original resin... if that one is not known or unavailable, use L285. So most professionals use L285 almost exclusively.

The somewhat higher price isn't really a factor considering the lack of hazmat fees. Makes sense to have only one resin in stock and not having to order from abroad.

 

(*) Edit/correction:

From the MGS 285 datasheet:

"After heat treatment at 50 - 55 °C (122-131 °F), the system meets the standards for

gliders and motor gliders (operational temperatures -60°C (-76°F) to +54°C (129 °F).

In order to meet the standards for motor planes (operational temperatures -60°C

(-76 °F) to +72 °C (161 °F), heat treatment at 80 °C (176 °F) is necessary."