Request re: Cutting Moulds for Composite Model Gliders

I am not a CNC guy. I'm one of a number of RC glider enthusiasts who've been designing and building homebrew gliders, particularly for the relatively new and awesome pursuit of dynamic soaring which makes gliders (no motors) reach extreme speeds. Very addictive.

Several of us have designed planes that perform very well, and we've then made gelcoat/ epoxy moulds from plugs. We've thus got some good composite moulding experience but the moulds are crappy and we now want to move up to accurate CNC cut moulds.

I have had drawings completed and moulds drawn and .stp files completed. So I'm ready to go. A couple of other mates are in a similar position. But being a hobby thing, we don't want to spend a fortune on it. Moulding good planes is time consuming and difficult, and we all have proper jobs, so we're never going to make money from it ... it's a labour of love really. I've been doing a lot of chasing around but haven't yet found a cheap and good option. There's a guy in the UK who is experienced and prices not bad, but the freight is a killer.

I have a wing mould and 2 smaller moulds (stabilizer and fin). The wing mould size is 2 halves, each 1700mm x 290mm and 50mm depth. The cut is very shallow. The surface is going to have to be polished for gloss paint.

I'm negotiable on the choice of material ... options being tooling resin block or aluminium, or a plastic such as Corian.

Can anyone help me (and maybe my mates) get these done properly at a reasonable price? I'm almost ready to give up. I'm in the Brisbane area.

Thanks,
Andrew

Hi Andrew,
That sounds really cool !
I have a 1.3 x 1.5m router which has about 70mm Z working height.
The length is a little short, but, segmenting the job could work OK.

I am also interested in getting experience with composite fabrication of RC models so Im sure something is possible!

I have built a few with divinycell/foam/carbon recently, but they are quite agricultural, but- functional :)... Something shiny and sleek would look so nice!

Cheers,
Seppo

Sending a PM Seppo!

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Originally Posted by Sep

Hi Andrew,
That sounds really cool !
I have a 1.3 x 1.5m router which has about 70mm Z working height.
The length is a little short, but, segmenting the job could work OK.

I am also interested in getting experience with composite fabrication of RC models so Im sure something is possible!

I have built a few with divinycell/foam/carbon recently, but they are quite agricultural, but- functional :)... Something shiny and sleek would look so nice!

Cheers,
Seppo

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Hi Seppo,

Do you care to share anything about your experience with divinycell model building? I have some left over Divinycell and access to CNC routers (upto 5.5m, not that i'd need it..) and have been keen to try and mill out a model plane from it.

How did yours turn out?

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I'm negotiable on the choice of material ... options being tooling resin block or aluminium, or a plastic such as Corian.

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I have machined Corian. It is a wonderful way of totally ruining bearings and leadscrews.

Cheers

Much later update ... it's over a year since I started this thread, and after heaps of phone calls, many promises of help and many dry leads I still did not find a cost effective option. I got my smaller moulds cut by an aeromodelling CNCer in the UK who's on this forum, but cutting the one piece wing, and embarking on other new projects didn't proceed.

So in the end I decided to purchase my own machine. It's been in the making for some months - made by Vermec Engineering here in Redcliffe, and it's a solid machine with a 2m Y and 1.1m X. I've been learning Rhino over the last year (in fits and starts, still very newbie) and I'm just starting to learn the CNC process as a novice using Madcam inside Rhino and Mach3 on the PC running the machine. So it's information overload right now.

Hi Andrew,
It is a super late message on this thread, how did the cnc cutting / mould routing end up going for you?
Cheers,
Seppo

Hi Seppo, I bought my own machine 3 years ago and have cut quite a few moulds now:
https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/show...-getting-a-CNC