We are proud to introduce a new innovative type of product to the market. These are aerospace grade structural pre-preg carbon fiber plates.
I designed these sheets specifically for jet modelers. The very specific thing about this product is that it is designed for both structural reinforcement and to improve the look of the internal structure. As such it features one face with a nice woven satin look and one face with a ready to remove peel ply fabric.
The peeled side will ensure the absolute best bounding characteristics onto any type of material used in a jet and is totally free from any release agent. So it is just a matter of cutting your plate, removing the peel ply and gluing it with any type of epoxy in your plane.
The added benefit of leaving the peel ply in place is: protection of the carbon fiber surface, and ease of cutting. We recommend cutting the plate from the peel ply side with a hack saw fitted with a ceramic cutting blade ( the ones that have a diamond coating ). This will ensure that the satin face is not scratched. The peel ply being still in position during the cutting process will help the hack saw socket to glide on the plate.
Additionally, the plates feature a very unique construction.
The outer ply on the satin side is laid up from high quality waving fabric with a perfect visual aspect, without any air bubbles.
The core of the plate however is laid up from a very specific non crimp fabric called quadriaxial. This fabric is stitched at 90 degrees and 45 degrees at the same time, ensuring optimal rigidity in 4 directions, hence its name. This ensures a very high structural characteristics these directions and gives an almost uniform stiffness to the plate.
More details about this fabric can be found on my blog:
The other very specific feature of these plates is the type of impregnation.
The plates are infused with a specific aero epoxy resin. The fabrics are laid up dry on the marble and the resin is sucked by the vacuum, chasing absolutely all the air bubbles. The fabric is also optimally impregnated with this method with no resin excess. Finally, the plates are post cured at 60 c/ 140 F and have a plastic point of 80 c/ 175 F, and will keep their strength even in the hottest summer conditions.
We use similar structural plates on all our professional multi copters and for UAV applications with 100% success. The plates will be available in 1,5 mm/ 0,06" and 2 mm/ 0.08" thickness for the time being. Sizes will be 10" by 20" and 20" by 20" initially.