What type of mat is used on the cmc body?
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What type of mat is used on the cmc body?
Very little matt - only in high stress areas and then very thin. What little I've seen on bodies is typically coarse matt, most often used to build up areas prone to stress. (it's also cheapest).
Most of the body is done with a chopper gun which spits out a congealed stream of pre-mixed resin and chopped fiberglass strands (hence, the name) and you can just keep spraying on an area until it builds to the thickness you want. That's why there's so much difference between different CMC bodies - if the chopper guy fell asleep and held the gun in one spot too long you ended up with a very think body in places. The gun should also spit out a certain percentage of red glass fibers so the operator can tell how much the glass is building as he's spraying it (if he's paying attention) but there was very little to insure that areas on different bodies were consistent in thickness.
Most of the body is done with a chopper gun which spits out a congealed stream of pre-mixed resin and chopped fiberglass strands (hence, the name) and you can just keep spraying on an area until it builds to the thickness you want. That's why there's so much difference between different CMC bodies - if the chopper guy fell asleep and held the gun in one spot too long you ended up with a very think body in places. The gun should also spit out a certain percentage of red glass fibers so the operator can tell how much the glass is building as he's spraying it (if he's paying attention) but there was very little to insure that areas on different bodies were consistent in thickness.