Aerowerx
Well-Known Member
I was just thinking about this, and I think it is feasible to make your own tapered tubular landing gear legs.
You would need to make a conical shaped form. If you have access to a lathe of sufficient size it would be easy to turn one out of wood. But it would not have to be round. With a table saw the form could be 8, or even 16 (or more) sided.
Apply a release compound, wrap with epoxy soaked carbon cloth and then vacuum bag it. When cured pop out the form.
Then you would have to come up with some way of attaching the axle. This could also be made out of carbon fiber, or some other material.
I suppose you would not have to use wood for the form. If it was made out of extruded foam you could just leave it in or dissolve it out with a solvent.
Of course, the hardest part of this would be determining the layup. Unidirectional fabric would be a problem if you wanted to have it run straight down the length of the tube, unless you did it in narrow strips. This might be a place where carbon tow would be useful, or maybe some pultruded rods. Then the whole thing could be wrapped in several layers of braided carbon sleeve.
You would need to make a conical shaped form. If you have access to a lathe of sufficient size it would be easy to turn one out of wood. But it would not have to be round. With a table saw the form could be 8, or even 16 (or more) sided.
Apply a release compound, wrap with epoxy soaked carbon cloth and then vacuum bag it. When cured pop out the form.
Then you would have to come up with some way of attaching the axle. This could also be made out of carbon fiber, or some other material.
I suppose you would not have to use wood for the form. If it was made out of extruded foam you could just leave it in or dissolve it out with a solvent.
Of course, the hardest part of this would be determining the layup. Unidirectional fabric would be a problem if you wanted to have it run straight down the length of the tube, unless you did it in narrow strips. This might be a place where carbon tow would be useful, or maybe some pultruded rods. Then the whole thing could be wrapped in several layers of braided carbon sleeve.
