Main gear construction

[Fernando]

Hello everyone!!!... After a very long wait for my Terf CD I finally get it today. (it took like 2 month to arrived to Argentina). I have started my reading process and a lot of cuestions are rounding and kicking my head... In chap. 9 the plans say "The main gear strut is a one piece, airfoil shaped "S" glass molded part available through a Vari Eze distribuitor..."

This are my cuestions:

* Can I build the main gear shaping the airfoil by myself?

* how can I get the strut if i coudn´t build it?

 

I have seen in the cozybuilders, i think, that they build a foam airfoil and they layup it several times. Have I seen well?

 

Help me please, I´m very lonely here in Argentina!!!

thanks

 

 

Fernando Mendiolar

[catchrow]

Fernando,

 

You could make the u/c bow yourself, but what a waste of time!! Also it would take some skill to be able to pack that much fibre into the mould and get a good fibre/volume ratio...

 

Goto www.ez.org and follow the links to suppliers. featherlite still make and supply the bow at a good price (Long EZ bow is about $500USD, so A Veri bow would be similar, maybe a little cheaper). failing that I have a brand new, never used VERI -EZ bow in Australia that you could have at a reasonable price + shippling.

 

Cheers,

 

Rowan

[Phil Kriley]

I do not believe you could make your own bow, because it is made of S-glass laid up in a mold and baked in a kiln. And I have no idea what epoxy they use.

 

You want to buy the bow and nosegear strut from Featherlite. Then you will take the parts and follow the plans for the extra layups that go onto the parts.

 

Good luck!

[Waiter]

I believe you could make your own bow, however, I don't think it would be cost effective, and I would be concerned about the quality.

 

 

 

You would need to build a mold, You could use the glass tape thats used for the wing spars. Place it in the mold, then cure it at 250 degrees for a day.

 

 

Look around and find someone else near by that also needs these components, get together and combine your shipping.

 

Good Luck

 

Waiter

[Vacabrava]

I have seen in the cozybuilders, i think, that they build a foam airfoil and they layup it several times. Have I seen well?

Hi Fernando,

I made my gear leg of UNI glass roving. The thickest you can find in Argentina is good.

And I think the suposed foam leg that you saw on cozybuilders is mine. So let me explain to you, there are NO FOAM inside the leg structure, just fiberglass, ok?

You build the mold plug out of foam, over the foam you laminate 10 plies of BID or more, after it cure you throw out the foam.

Like that you have one mold that you can make your leg strut with the UNI roving and epoxy.

Find the better epoxy to high temperature purpose. Heat cure like Waiter`s said.

There are another way to make the mold, like in two parts that are clamped together, I think this is the way to go.

Cheers,

[Big Steve]

I was going to make my own gear leg bow when I first started my project. But_____ When I figured out what it would cost to make a mold and the material for the gear leg cost almost $400 I decided to just buy the bow from feather lite. I am glad I did it saved me a bunch of time and probably money also. STeve

[Fernando]

Thank you all of you for your helpfull aswers. I have known a Brazilian Pilot who builded a great bow using Kevlar, he is going to send me some photos and some kind of instruction manual for its construction, he thinks I can adapt the bow for the LEZ and the kevlar save a littl bit of weight... I will upload the photos when I get them. Thanks Again!!! I´m really larning a lot from you.

[Fernando]

hey! waqtch at this

[chasingmars]

Thank you all of you for your helpfull aswers. I have known a Brazilian Pilot who builded a great bow using Kevlar

Be careful with using Kevlar in an application like this. Kevlar has good and bad points, for example, it has excellent tensile strength to weight and absorbs a lot of energy in the process of failing, but, it has terrible compressive strength (worse than E-glass even), and large parts of the bow structure are in compression during landing. Basically, the structure of kevlar has a "kink" in the molecule that basically in compression make weak spots each fibre - an oversimplification, but generally that's what it is. Moreover it's failure mode is such that you could see gradual degradation in strength over time (basically these until ultimate failure hits unexpectedly, so unless your friend with the kevlar bow is a composites engineer, and took this into account, I'd be very cautious following in his footsteps even if his kevlar bow works fine now.