Bending a carbon fibre sheet around a leading edge.

[David Hall 9]

I am thinking about how I might repair the damage to a couple of my moulded glider wings.  Filling the hole and covering with resin and CF/GF cloth seems to be the standard way to do this.      One of the repairs is to a 250mm length of LE back to the spar.   It's a hollow construction and has an area where the skin is delaminated from its backing (lots of fiddly work to do).  

I found some CF sheet material in 0.2mm thickness and wondered if that might be easy to "plate" the open area.   I can stand the extra weight and the ease of application and finish are attractive.    I can construct a leading edge strip, bridging the gap, and apply the sheets as a top sheet and a bottom sheet, but the preferred option would be to use a sheet which has been pre-bent to the shape of the leading edge.     

Is there  way to mould a cured CF/resin sheet around such a sharp radius (maybe only 3mm)?    (I'm thinking woven mat, probably 3K at 200gsm).  

 

 

 

 

[Don Fry]

Another thought, Mick Reeves does an epoxy glass sheet called Proskin. It comes in .2 mm, and is used as a covering skin, replacing balsa on all sheeted structures. It’s nowhere near as stiff as CF. Abraded it works well with cynoacetate glues. Or epoxy of course. Mine is in France, to hard to export or you could have some. An appeal to the forum? You won’t need much as a proof of concept.

[David Hall 9]

4 hours ago, Don Fry said:

Another thought, Mick Reeves does an epoxy glass sheet called Proskin. It comes in .2 mm, and is used as a covering skin, replacing balsa on all sheeted structures. It’s nowhere near as stiff as CF. Abraded it works well with cynoacetate glues. Or epoxy of course. Mine is in France, to hard to export or you could have some. An appeal to the forum? You won’t need much as a proof of concept.

That's a useful product!      I might try a sample.    For this time, some 02.mm CF is winging its way to me, so I will use this on the larger repair.