I recently discovered a neat way to cut fiberglass cloth while starting my canopy fairing build. I first downloaded the pdf file for the fiberglass cut templates and transferred them to a national office supply chain for printing. When I got back my five copies, they were "expanded to fit" the page, even though my work order said "not to". Thus they were unusable !
That led me to break apart the pdf drawing into a picture for each ply and then send it to my CO2 laser cutter for cutting the patterns. Vary accurate cut, and relatively easy to do. Then I thought, "why not cut the fiberglass cloth this way." So I smoothed and laid out a piece of 9 oz cloth over the cutout template still on the laser cutter bed and proceeded to cut out the glass weave. Perfect !
There are several nice benefits about this technique:
1) I didn't have to make a separate pdf images for the left and right sides as they are mirror images.
2) The cuts are extremely accurate and fast.
3) We can readily make any number of copies to handle mistakes or
alternate plies.
4) The edges along the cut line are lightly heat-sealed, so no unraveling of the weave.
5) Since no rotary cutter, scissors or razor blades are used, there is no stretching or distortion of the cloth.
Feel free to message me for more info on how.
That led me to break apart the pdf drawing into a picture for each ply and then send it to my CO2 laser cutter for cutting the patterns. Vary accurate cut, and relatively easy to do. Then I thought, "why not cut the fiberglass cloth this way." So I smoothed and laid out a piece of 9 oz cloth over the cutout template still on the laser cutter bed and proceeded to cut out the glass weave. Perfect !
There are several nice benefits about this technique:
1) I didn't have to make a separate pdf images for the left and right sides as they are mirror images.
2) The cuts are extremely accurate and fast.
3) We can readily make any number of copies to handle mistakes or
alternate plies.
4) The edges along the cut line are lightly heat-sealed, so no unraveling of the weave.
5) Since no rotary cutter, scissors or razor blades are used, there is no stretching or distortion of the cloth.
Feel free to message me for more info on how.