Are composite homebuilts dying out?

Tim wrote:
"rich" wrote in message
...
I agree with all you said. And I didn't enjoy breathing the fumes
myself all those years. Plus, after a few years of building, I
realized how little work the kit maker did compared to what I was
doing. Making the big parts in molds is easy. The builder does all the
hard work.
Rich


I think this is a common misconception. It's easy to look at a fuse half
section and think, gosh if I had a mold I could lay one of those suckers up
in a day, and you probably could with just a little practice. But all the
work spent shaping a plug, and/or building a substantial mold is ignored
with a single word.

Shaping and finishing a fuse, or a plug for a fuse, and/ constructing a mold
requires tons of labor. If you use a mold, your material costs alone would
likely triple.





That was Burt Rutan's particular gift to the state of the art.

A soft foam piece that was easy to develop into complex shapes,
and stayed in the part as a stiffening core.

Or remove the foam completely after layup, if it's not needed.

"Mold-less" construction.