"Mini Buzz" Blended Wing Project

[Doc J]

One problem i have had in the past is the leading edge cloth getting all bunched up when the vacuum sucks down in that area. Ill try your way, cant remember what exactly i did last time.

One reason I'm excited again about doing vacuum bagging is @Yotaman1985 reminded me you can do some bagging with food sealers. Its significantly less "stuff" to get out just to try something and on these tiny little wing cores it will super convenient. Especially considering that you can fully seal the bags and remove them from the vacuum and right away do another core, whereas my current bagging setup i have to leave the pump system going all day.

I really need to go back into rcgroups composites section and read up on how to make stuff as light as possible.

I have a small collection of cutoffs from past projects to try different weights of glass (some 6oz sglass too) and some 5.7oz and 12oz carbon.

We were discussing ways to be able to bag an entire wing at once, instead of separate parts you have to seam together later. Any thoughts on that @Doc J ?

Hi Nate,
Since you only need or for that matter can have one atmosphere at most for bagging, you already have 14 lb/in² (1kg/cm²) - which can amount to several tons of pressure top and bottom. That's a lot more than containers of water or lead can do, so a food vacuum system is great - as long as the bags are sealed well when/if removed...

I have done multi-tapered wing panels, and also dihedral breaks along the same panel - all at the same time by carefull cutting the shells to fit. It works OK with very careful setups. Of course a tapered or even elliptical wing panel is not so hard, but you cannot tape the shells together at the trailing edges except at the wing root until the core is in the shells. The trick is to plan it all out and dry-test everything first. This is not a production situation I guess so its probably worth the time to get a great wing panel.

If you have a sketch of the panels you want to bag I might be able to help with some advice on how to do it.

Cheers,

Doc.

 

[Doc J]

I don't know what the good folks in CZ have figured out, but the bagging they do is the best I have ever seen. Leading edges, rather complex shapes, just doesn't seem to bother them. Next time you are in the shop ask to see a VP model to check out the work they do.

Hi Wayne, they do indeed do great bagging at CZ.

I think it's possible that they use an entire layer of compliant but nice-finish plastic to cover the entire wing, holding the layups, and then reinforce it by encasing the wet assembly in sheets of harder shells, perhaps like the Formica I used.

In this way, you'd get a very consistent and nicely finished surface over the entire panel, while also maintaining the arrow straightness that stiffer shells would provide. In a production situation, this would be easy to do, and everything, for the most part, would be reusable. But at home...hmm...complicated.

My 2 cents' worth.

Doc.

 

[Wayne]

Well, I know the DLGs we used to offer had "bumps" where they had layers of carbon, etc, so don't think they were doing a hard shell, but the VP stuff doesn't seem to have this issue. Got me. One of these days maybe I'll get to see the process in person.

 

[Yotaman1985]

My carbon, kevlar and epoxy showed up today. Super excited to unbox it and check it out. Just waiting on my wing cores now

 

[thenated0g]

My food sealer showed up and using Jeremy's suggestion of sealing each end three times. I did a little test with some sharpies and it still had vacuum this morning

The 11-in width is certainly going to be a restriction on the size of things that I can do in here, but that's fine. Small stuff is lots of fun.

 

[Mucksmear]

My food sealer showed up and using Jeremy's suggestion of sealing each end three times. I did a little test with some sharpies and it still had vacuum this morning

The 11-in width is certainly going to be a restriction on the size of things that I can do in here, but that's fine. Small stuff is lots of fun.

I have found bags as wide as 15". The long edge of an iron-on-covering sealing iron and some sort of guide channel is all you need to seal the bag (in case your foodsaver is smaller than 15" or as in my case, don't have one) .

 

[Yotaman1985]

I have found bags as wide as 15". The long edge of an iron-on-covering sealing iron and some sort of guide channel is all you need to seal the bag (in case your foodsaver is smaller than 15" or as in my case, don't have one) .

Thanks for the info. I had thought about making some larger bags by cutting up and ironing together the smaller ones. Would leave an 11" side to fit in the vacuum sealer still but could iron together a much larger bag. May have to try that in the future.

 

[Yotaman1985]

Got the email that my cores are done. Super excited to get them and give this whole process a try.

 

[Shoelace]

My food sealer showed up and using Jeremy's suggestion of sealing each end three times. I did a little test with some sharpies and it still had vacuum this morning

The 11-in width is certainly going to be a restriction on the size of things that I can do in here, but that's fine. Small stuff is lots of fun.
View attachment 22970View attachment 22971

I was wondering why the heck you were vacuum sealing sharpies.

Food sealers are awesome. Go to Costco, buy a bunch of steaks, season and seal them, throw them in the freezer. Get your Anovo sous vide going, throw that in the water, 2 hours later you have perfectly good steak. Also, if you like to fish, vacuum seal the filets and those are good in the freezer for 18 months minimum. You'll probably get a lot of use out of it outside of hobbying.

 

[Doc J]

Other uses? I tried to seal up the wife and bung her in the freezer - couldnt find the bags dammit!
Doc.

 

[thenated0g]

I was wondering why the heck you were vacuum sealing sharpies.

Food sealers are awesome. Go to Costco, buy a bunch of steaks, season and seal them, throw them in the freezer. Get your Anovo sous vide going, throw that in the water, 2 hours later you have perfectly good steak. Also, if you like to fish, vacuum seal the filets and those are good in the freezer for 18 months minimum. You'll probably get a lot of use out of it outside of hobbying.

Oh yeah lol didn't even think of using it for what it's for. I have just been using ziplocks with my sous vide

 

[slopenutz]

I need to read up on cooking techniques for the sous vide. Have had a brand new one sitting in the box for probably 3 years. One of these days I’ll break it out.

Sorry Jeremy, not trying to hijack a perfectly good vacuum bagging thread.

 

[Yotaman1985]

All good, my wife has one as well and we dont use it very often. May need to change that now that I have 150 ft of vacuum bags...

 

[thenated0g]

@slopenutz its pretty amazing for meat you are going to grill. You can have it exactly the way you like it every single time once you figure out your "recipe". I have two numbers dialed in and documented (took me just a couple times to figure it out). One temp i use for my daughter and I as we like med rare and another for my wife as she likes burnt lol. Plus you get them going ahead of time in the water and you can leave it in there until just a few minutes before you want to eat, just long enough to sear. No need for resting.

 

[thenated0g]

originally i was going to call my wood veneered version of the Gizmo the woodzmo, but since your calling it the mini buzz i guess im calling it the Mini Wood.

 

[Yotaman1985]

originally i was going to call my wood veneered version of the Gizmo the woodzmo, but since your calling it the mini buzz i guess im calling it the Mini Wood.

I had settled on the Toy Story theme and figured the Mini Woodie wasn't quite appropriate for multiple reasons... The wife and I had a good laugh about it though when brain storming names and decals/designs.

 

[thenated0g]

First veneer and gorilla glue out of the food sealer.
Little bit of sanding on the leading edge. Some trimming on the trailing edge and it is totally usable

 

[Yotaman1985]

Looks great Nate! Hoping my cores arrive early next week so I can join the fun

 

[thenated0g]

This is the crappy cooler foam. Didn't get crunched in the vacuum so that's good.

 

[thenated0g]

I think I would do this foam around 7inHg and the pink foam around 19. So it's definitely not pulling down to 19in of mercury. I can also tell that the food sealer doesn't pull it down as much as my other big one does.l, as far as the plastic wrapping around the edges, I might need to get some thinner plastic than the mylar I have or sand it down there. I mean it's working but I can tell it's not as tight as some of the other ways. But again I think that's related to the thickness of myler I'm using . I think I might go by the dollar store and grab some thin plastic binders and use those as thinner plastic .But it's definitely good enough and so much more convenient than getting all the other stuff out to do it. Fun to be excited about learning bagging again.