DIY Carbon fiber landing gear

[tudordewolf]

Wanting to push the weight savings even further on a recent build, I was inspired to try a custom carbon fiber landing gear project. I got some "AH-1" resin and carbon fiber fabric, and used a food-saver style vac sealer to make an "envelope" for the aluminum landing gear, and a larger one that would fit around that. I vac-sealed the aluminum landing gear, mixed the resin thoroughly, applied 4 layers of the carbon fiber fabric, and finally vacuum sealed the whole assembly and tried to smooth the whole thing out as much as I could. Updates to follow.

I used blue masking tape to keep the edges together as I cut them.

 

[tudordewolf]

Original and copy after unwrapping and cutting away the excess on a tiny table saw, which absolutely nailed the job:

Final thickness, about 0.9mm, and weighs only 6g. The aluminum is 1.5mm and 20g. I was guessing at the number of layers and running out of carbon fabric, which is why I went with 4 plies, but I think I'm going to do another with just a few more for confidence, and only 3g more weight would be ~50% more strength.

 

[tudordewolf]

Round 2, doing my Avistar's gear in carbon fiber. More complicated shapes, and 2 parts, though that makes it easier to lay them out. Starting weight is 100g this time, so I'm doing 9 layers of 0.3mm fabric, aiming for 3mm and ~60g based on online calculators.

This time I'm laying it over the top.

9 pieces, 11.5" long, taping the edges.

Laid up

Curing. It's already solid after ~8 hours, but I'm giving it a full 24 hours to be sure.