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