Great stuff High Seas, but I'm a pilot not an engineer. I am very handy with building things and I have built a few race cars, so I know what a long project I'm getting into. The airplane I want to build is called a Cozy. It's a modified version of Burt Rutan's Long Eze. Burt licensed the design to another guy who sells the plans. It uses moldless construction. You cut a part out of foam, then cover it with fiberglass. Then you glue the parts together. Many of the parts are flat and straight. Others are cut flat then curved, then fiberglassed. The wings are fairly complex and I originally wanted to make a cnc hot wire cutter for them. Fortunately, there is a guy who has built the airplane and already has the cutter. He sells the precut wing foam for a few hundred dollars more than the cost of the foam. So I'll just probably just buy the wing foam precut.
Where I think I can gain a significant advantage is with the smaller flat parts. There are alot of them. The plans call for hand cutting the foam part, then fiberglassing it, then trimming the excess fiberglass. If I can machine cut the part, I'll save alot of time. If I can cut a rectangular piece of foam slightly larger than the part and fiberglass it. Then cut the part out, I'll have automated two tedious steps and I'll save huge amounts of time.  |