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type of foam in wingtips

rockwoodrv9

rockwoodrv9

Well Known Member
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I used the search to find out what type of foam is used to fill the HS fiberglass tips and other fiberglass areas. I imaging any closed cell foam would work or even aluminum caps, balsa wood and fiberglass. My thought is the biggest thing to consider is making sure whatever is used, it better not come loose.

Im heading to "The Big City" Grand Junction, tomorrow and I want to pick up foam for the tips. I want some West Systems epoxy too, but there are no suppliers around here. I will need to go to Denver for that.

thanks, rockwood
 
I didn't use any foam. Fabricated a couple Al ribs (see what Bruce posted below) and epoxied in place to close out the ends and smoothed with microballoon epoxy. Maybe I screwed up but its worked fine for 3+ years?

Greg
 
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good idea

Thanks Greg. I think I will do the same. I thought about it more last night and wondered if I could cut foam close enough to not have a gap for moisture to form. Then I thought about the expanding foam, like Great Stuff you can get at HD or Lowes. That would completely fill the space but it is very messy and could expand the fiberglass if you were not careful leaving it open to expand.

I think the aluminum cap, riveted and epoxied in is probably the best way to go. I need to reshape the fiberglass to fit the structure better and the aluminum cap will be rigid enough to get a fit I don't have to do as much work with.

I was reading old posts last night and wondered if you ever built pants for your big tire 9? I saw another guy in the Grand Junction area that put big tires on his 7. I may try and look him up and see how his worked out for him.

Now, off to the city!

rockwood
 
Rockwood,

Several other RVer's have used those tires without any modification in the fairings - makes them a bit closer to the fairing but apparently that has worked for some folks. Worst case, you could modify the fairings to ride slightly higher to clear the tires. There are a couple threads on here about doing so that you could find with the search engine.

I have not done anything about making fairings for the 800x6 tires - not sure if its worth the $500 for RV-10 fairings.

Greg
 
I used aluminum from the scrap bundle that Van's provides.

It is very easy to fit the aluminum into the end caps.
1197380629_WVD9U-M.jpg


Once the fit is good, then you can glue them in place. I used some proseal, then went back and put a good fillet of flox and epoxy in to hold them permanently.
If I were to do this again, I'd skip the proseal and get some 5 minute epoxy to tack this in place.
1208384972_bMjGe-M.jpg


Final step is to fill the end gap with some micro & epoxy, then sand it down smooth.
1224426295_Z95Xw-M.jpg


More information here.
 
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