Friday, August 9, 2013

Fabricating small parts with carbon fiber: A John Zseleczky Production.

Dear constant reader, you may recall that I posted some pix of Mark Saunders' redecked Europe-Moth a few months ago.  Mark's spars featured some neat attachment pieces fabricated from G-10 fiberglass board and carbon fiber cloth set in epoxy.  You may be curious as to how those parts were made; your diarist certainly is.  What follows is John Zseleczky's step by step instructions for making a forestay tang which can be bonded to a carbon fiber mast thus avoiding drilling holes for pop rivets as would be the case if one was attaching a conventional stainless steel hounds fitting.  This same strategy can be used to fabricate other small parts to bond hardware items to carbon fiber components such as fairleads for boom blocks, vang attachment, etc. V. useful info! Enjoy.


The finished forestay tang installed on Mark's carbon mast









3 comments:

  1. now there is good info. Thanks John and George

    ReplyDelete
  2. Replies
    1. Glad you guys found the post useful. I'm in the process of making a similar part to locate the vang take off point for a carbon mast. The original design for this part failed the last time my son raced the boat in question. John's tuition came along at just the right time for us to make the part before the Classic Moth Boat Nationals ;)

      Delete