Subject: Aluminum Foil Laminating Technique By:
James Sleigh
We recently started the process of applying laminates to the wing ribs. As usual, the manual is pretty skimpy on exactly the best way to do this. I
think it says something like, "apply two laminates to each rib using standard technique". Ok, sure, no sweat.
But have you seen that A rib? It's pretty darn long, and a klutz like me is assured of making a terrific mess. How do I get the fabric to lay in the
proper location without stretching it too long or too tall? I know, check the Internet. The web site will surely have a trick to make this job easy.
Yep, wet out the laminates between two pieces of plastic then apply to the rib. Simple enough, but I must have had the wrong type of plastic (clear
drop cloth stuff) because the vinylester system caused a chemical reaction resulting in the plastic curling up and becoming very sticky. A complete
mess and total failure. Never even made it off the bench. There's got to be a better way.
Help arrived by way of two friends that have built a beautiful Long-eze. They too had heard of the plastic trick, but didn't have any laying about.
Off they went to the kitchen looking for big ziplock bags and found the aluminum foil instead. Why not try this? They did and it worked like a
champ.
You simply stretch or compress the fiberglass cutout to the proper size and lay it on a sheet of foil. Trace the outline of the fabric onto the foil.
We used the corner of a squeegee and scribed the outline into the foil. Remove the fabric and wet the area with epoxy. One by one, wet out all the
plies on the foil. Then, cut the foil around the circumference of the laminate. You'll be left with something similar to a package of smoked
salmon. The beauty of the foil is that it actually provides a bit of stiffness to the wet laminate to assist you with positioning. Just paint a
thin layer of epoxy on the target area, then apply the foil backed laminate, positioning as necessary. The foil even lets you pull the laminate back off
the surface if you botch the initial alignment. Once in place, peel back the foil and chase the inevitable air bubbles out the sides.
This technique has resulted in saved time and a better finished rib for our Super II RG.