Re: ATM - West System Epoxy and wood

["Rick" <acrohead@ix.netcom.com>]

I just sold my homebuilt single place aerobatic airplane that was about 50%
complete (sob, whine, tears flowing down face!).

  The wing construction on this airplane is wood glued together with epoxy.
 I used an epoxy called T-18 but was about to switch to West Systems.  Both
are commonly used in homebuilt aircraft.

  The wing skin is 1/8" aircraft grade mahogany (about $125/4'x8' sheet)
glued in place.  The wing is then covered with a light weight aircraft wing
fabric and glued on with the epoxy.  It is then again covered as necessary
with more epoxy, the epoxy being sanded until your bones come out of yer
fingers.  When the wing surface has the texture of a highly polished
telescope mirror, it is painted.  If you have ever seen some of the
beautiful homebuilt airplanes that are constructed this way, or with other
composite materials, you can't help but notice their glassy finishes.

My thoughts on building my scope (I'm way behind the reading curve at this
point; I have 493 ATM messages queued up) are to construct it in a similiar
manner as the airplane wing; with ply skin (not the $120 kind) over a ply
bulkhead (baffel) structure covered with fabric and West Systems epoxy.  It
should be quit light and very strong.  My airplane wing was stress designed
 to 15g's ultimate (as if a person could take that much!).

You could use the same design with mahogany skin, but of course you would
want the beautiful mahogany to show.

Anyway, this West Systems epoxy is excellent stuff, is used in boat and
aircraft construction, and is very strong.  However, as with all epoxys, at
about 140 degrees F the stuff turns to the consistancy of peanut butter
(that's why you see so many composite homebuilt aircraft painted white!) ,
so you wouldn't want to leave your scope outside on a really hot sunny
day.

Rick