Home Build International Moth Blog 10: Before and after! Valkyrie's new higher wings take shape
by James Sainsbury 23 Oct 21:33 BST
Valkyrie's new higher wings take shape © James Sainsbury
Okay, so she's nowhere near finished yet. However, the progress has been swift and drastic! After the chop and the tears, the first job was to mock the wings up to the new height that I was aiming for so I could measure the new angles for the wing sockets.
Using the measurements, I made up some wooden templates to make sure I was happy before using the expensive stuff. All was good and I was excited at the prospect of what she was going to look like. From there, carbon sandwich plates were made to replace the wooden templates.
To help hold the boat together it needs sockets to fit neatly into each wing and hull section. I formed a thin removable carbon tube from the inside of each section, joined each one to is partner using the carbon plates to gain the correct angles and then I bonded them together.
Now we have four neat sockets to give the boat its shape. However, these are not structural, so I laid up a whole load of uni directional carbon inside the sockets using a bladder mould to give them the strength required to keep the boat in one piece once under the loads of sail & crashing.
Next stage was to glue it all together and ensure she's strong enough with some Uni and Biax carbon laid up over each join in the wings.
Beautiful! She now looks like a boat again initial thoughts are she's looking pretty aggressive!
Next on the list of jobs was to fill in the gap between the deck and hull that had appeared from the increased angle.
After raking the wings up by a substantial amount the boat needed extending on the outer wing bars, so she now has an extra 60mm either side to compensate.
There are a couple of little bits to finish on the hull and the next step is to modify the rig setup to accommodate the new wing angles.
We are still on for a November launch!