Hull making

[Stiege]

Hey everyone,

I'm wanting to get into the remote control scene a bit. I'm not sure if I'm going for a quad-copter or r/c boat yet, but I'm interested in what the best way to make a cheap hull is. I was thinking of maybe building a simple foam cutter, then once I had my shape using some plastic mesh and epoxy to create a shell. Would that even work? Anyone else into this stuff and have a process they want to share?

Thanks in advance

[Gall]

It depends on your own skills and the desired weight. There are four main techniques.

1. Foam cutting. This may be done using CNC cutter or just by hand with a sharp knife or a hot wire.
2. Making longerons out of a thin wood or carbon just like it's made on a big aircraft. Cover it with thin film, fabric or even paper. That's similar to WWI and early WWII wooden aircraft construction.
3. Vacuum forming out of a thin plastic.
4. Epoxy resin on a fabric or paper. This may be used for external cover of the foam or by its own. Temporary foam inserts are then usually dissolved by acetone.

[Psi]

If you make something out of foam use EPP.
EPP foam it's much better, it bends instead of snapping like typical polystyrene does.