Overview

As far as making carbon fibre MTA's, this is a brief overview of the process involved.

First you need to decide on the type of resin, to make the mold out of. Without going into too much detail, the resin that we currently use, is Poly urethane. In the past, we have tried Epoxy resin, which is a lot harder ( i.e. tensile hardness), than Poly. I think Poly is easier to make a mold from.

Poly urethane's disadvantage for a mold material, is that it is more easily damaged/scratched, and therefore less boomerangs are going to be made from it.

Next decide which boomerang to make a carbon fibre copy of. In my pictures, I have chosen a 1.5mm paxolin MTA.

There are 2 techniques that Martin has developed to help construct a mold. The plasticine method, and the tape method. In this example we have used the tape method, because the MTA is so thin. The plasticine method will be explained in a separate instruction.

We then make a mold.

Next the mold is filled with carbon fibre. At this point, in my article we also used a vacuum bag.This is not essential, but we think a better finish is produced on the final surface of the MTA if it is used. Next we add microballons/ and maybe some balsa.

The two halves of the mold are then pushed together, and with pressure, left to set, at room temperature. At this stage of our current experiments, we do not use any heat to help the curing process.

If successful, the mold is separated, and out pops a virtually ready to fly, carbon fibre MTA.

Oh Joy.