Hi Dave,
OK, well, ditch-friedly means Kevlar or Diolen; carbon is not so ditch friendly. Kevlar is no cheaper than carbon really but it will certainly be more impact resiliant.
What colour are you panels going to be painted, is it something simple to match (like WHITE or BLACK) or is it a specific colour? - If it's black or white then the easier thing might be to simply use a pigmented gelcoat in the mould first and then you won't need to paint the panels afterwards.
To help you calculate the amount of material you would need to make the moulds it would be helpful to know the approximate surface area of the wings but I can have a decent guess that they would be around 1.5m x 0.8m = 1.2sqm. Allowing for some decent flange area around the mould we're talking 1.5sqm per side. This is handy because our Large
Uni-Mould Mould Making Kit is based around making 3.3sqm of mould so would be ideal. This kit includes everything you would need to make the moulds except for release agent so I'd just suggest adding a 500ml bottle of
Easy-Lease Chemical Release Agent and then a tin of
Mould Release Wax.
That's your moulds taken care of so you're onto making the parts themselves. If you want to keep weight down then vacuuming (either vacuum bagging or resin infusion) will make a big difference. Yes, the weight can be in the resin, or at least the weight that can be eliminated is in the resin, the fibre does the work.
Resin infusion would give you the lightest panel and the best surface finish but it's also possible to have something go wrong with resin infusion if you're new to it and there's slightly more set-up cost (because of the catch-pot). If you wanted the parts to have a good surface finish then I'd tell you it MUST be resin infusion (because vac bagged parts won't ever have a showroom finish straight out of the mould) but as you'renot too worried about surface finish then vacuum bagging is an option for you. We're working on a new technique at the moment that's not quite ready for me to announce on this forum but what I can say is that if you just need to vacuum bag this then we should be able to set you up with
everything you would need to do this for around £100. It's not a system that would be right for everyone but I think it would be right for you.
Finally then, your materials. I think your 3 layers of reinforcement would be too thin, the panels will be very flexible. For your impact resistant panels I would go for either:
3-4 layers of
300g kevlar (3 layers if you used some
3mm closed cell PVC foam in areas, 4 at least 4 layers if you didn't)
or/
1 layer of
300g kevlar4 layers of
300g diolen1 layer of 300g kevlar
You might also want to vac in some
3mm closed cell PVC foam inside the laminate on the flatter areas to improve the stiffness of the panel without adding much weight.
Use
EL-2 Laminating Epoxy on a medium hardener speed (mix fast and slow together 50/50) to give yourself plenty of working time.
If you tell me what layup you want to go for and exactly what those panels measure I should be able to give you quantities on both the resin and the reinforcement.
--Matt
Matt StathamEasy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Sales