Jerry and Gardner,

  If you're looking for a carbon tube or mast section with a zero degree orientation on the main fibers, and aren't sure about building it yourself, I highly recommend Forte Carbon Spars. 

  I used them for a carbon mast, boom, and bowsprit on a Pearson Ensign I'm renovating, and I couldn't be happier with their work.  Friendly, professional, helpful, and the cost came to just about the same figure I was quoted for a bird's mouth construction spruce mast. (note: the apples-to-apples price was for a black spar without hardware, not the fancy faux-spruce painted spare shown in the photos in the link below)

    http://www.nuomo.com/mast/

  More important is Forte's technology:

    http://fortecarbon.com/technology/

  They have a zero degree orientation on the main fibers that allows them to have continuous fibers through the entire length of the mast.  I've been on the shop floor, watching their machine in action as it weaves the fibers and saturates them with epoxy at the same time.  Very cool.  Then the spar gets vacuum bagged and baked to ensure everything is tight.

  The problem with continuous-wound masts, other than the fact that the fibers aren't at zero degrees, is that there's an effective length limit for many manufacturers of about 30 to 40 feet.  After that the mandrel bends too much as it's rotating under tension.  So longer spars actually get made by joining two smaller spars.  Even if Forte's process were not as good as a continuous wind, I'd still rather have a single spar rather that two joined sections.

  It's worth pondering at least.  Or, getting a quote if you're thinking about building.  Forte also does carbon tubes for other industries.

        - Mike

 

 

That is really cool.  I thought for masts though you wanted an almost 0 degree orientation for most of it with a wound layer for hoop strength.  Still I can think of lot of other things that machine could be used for.

Jerry Barth

 

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Hi,

 

I thought this http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1157143472/x-winder-the-worlds-first-desktop-filament-winder was something relevant to this group. It is a carbon fiber filament winder. The largest model they are talking about is a 6" diameter and 8' long, but I wondered if it might be possible to join the lengths together.

I was hoping that someone more knowledgeable than me (which would be all of you! <grin>) might contribute their thoughts.

 

- Gardner