Anyone interested?

[MixMasterK]

Hey everyone. Been a while since I've been on. Not sure if I can post this here but, I'll give it a shot. Wanted to find out if anyone would be interested in the following:

During this summer, I will be making molds for the sunroof and possibly even the hood of the 924/944 models (77.5- pre 85.5). I'm going to start making composite parts for myself and anyone else that would like them. Everyone will have their choice of either fiberglass or carbon fiber. (A word of note: companies selling carbon fiber parts are not completely made of carbon. They are an overlay. You can tell if you hold the part to a light and see the light through it.) Anyway, the sunroof will have the inner frame so that you can remount your upholstry to it. The hood will not have the framework as I am contemplating on using the customers sheetmetal frame from their stock hood or a salvaged one. I'm doing this for 4 reasons. One, the frame is easy to R&I and is already to spec. Two, making a mold for the frame section would be a hassle. Three, the metal frame is a lot more rigid. And four, time and cost is less which means you save money!

These parts will shave off a considerable amount of weight from the car including the sunroof which is rather awkward to remove from the car with its weight.

If interested, email me and I'll get a list going.

[kenny]

Thant's a lot of work for the guy getting the hood. You'd have to drill out all the spot welds then reattach (rivet? bond?). It would be much better to have the whole unit as an assembly. The hood frame could be made a seperate composite piece and then secondaily bonded on to the rest of the hood. The hood of course would have to be in the female tool when bonding the 'hat' section stiffeners (frame) onto the hood skin. These are going to be very expensive if done right, and if done wrong are going to be a waist of time. I do a lot of composites stress analysis ex[erience, so if you have any other questions -- feel free to ask.

[MixMasterK]

That's ok. I do R&D for a composite performance aircraft company. I would also offer the customer the option to have myself do the framework to the skin since it would be better, as you say, to do it while it's in the mold.

[kenny]

I see you're in Kennewick -- I actually grew up in Moses Lake. Brother and I got a farm/orchard (small) over in Royal City.

I'm working in TX at Lockheed Martin (job shopping). If you are gointo lay them up by hand, you could make the OML the outside of the hood, lay the hood 'skin' up (prepreg or wet) and then use some foam where the frames are, and drape some more plies over the top of that. But thinking about it, that might put a lot of interlaminar stress between the stiffener and the hood skin -- it would probably be better to secondarily bond the stiffeners on.

Realistically how much weight do you think you are going to save veres the cost? F-22 has lot of gr/ep but costs a fortune.

New JSF will have some composite wings but nearly everything else will be aluminum.

Of course, if you're cheap labor...

Can you get 'out-of-date' prepreg to use?

[seb928s]

I would be interested in few months from now but would like to get more of an idea of price? Email me seb928s@ij.net

Thanks

Seb

[justin]

Hey Kenny, which part of Lockheed do you work at? My father works there,you might know him,he's a buyer,Ken Martin.

[kenny]

Justin,
I do stress analysis and so don't see the buyers much. I get around though and might recognize him if I saw him.

[MixMasterK]

I'm actually now living in Central Oregon near Bend. The Kennewick location is my "permanent" address.