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Steps: pick a shape you like. I used the RV10 wheel pant shape as a 0starting point. Sketch the shape onto poster board and cut it out. Transfer to a block of foam (I just glued cheap blocks of styrofoam together). Carved with an electric turkey carving knife to the approximate shape then sanded to the final shape. I covered all the foam with drywall spackling and sanded then repeated that til no foam was showing. I sprayed it with a couple layers of epoxy primer and sanded that and did any needed touch ups primed again. Sanded it with 400/600 grit, waxed it with mold release wax. Covered with a good coating of. PVA mold release. Covered with 4 layers of carbon fiber. It too complex for a sheet of carbon to conform two but you can probably do it with 2 overlapping sheets per layer. Just stgger your overlaps to avoids a big hump. After it cured I sanded it, clened it and covered it with epoxy micro to fill 5e weave and smooth the overlaps. I sanded that and touched up as necessary and then slathered with glazing/spot putty to fill all the pinholes in the micro. Sanded that then sprayed 3 coats of primer and sanded to a smooth 600 grit finish. This is the mold for the second wheel pant. I waxed it and applied mold release liberally. i the.n repeated the above process putting the second wheel pant over the first one (dont be tempted to try to cut the wheel pant loose like this dumbass poster did). Noone will ever know that one is a few thousandths bigger than the other.. When the second wheel pant is finished to the primer stage, draw a perimeter line through the high point of the wheel and cut them both in two at the same time. Free them from each other and the mold and clean up the insides. Then tape the matching parts together on the outside. On the inside scuff a couple inches of carbon on the nose side of the cut line and put a tape release on the after two inches of the cut line. The purpose of this is to build a flange to mount the two halves together, Cut four strips of carbon 3 inches wided and due a wet layup along the inside of wheel pant cut line with at least one inch of the three on 5e release tape so you form a flange at least one inch wide. You can look at my photos and see where I put screws/nutplatex but satisfy yourself and locate them as you wish. Just use clecos to hold them together for fitting until after you get thm fitted to the gear leg. Its sort of slow process of making gradual cuts to fit the nose over the gear leg from the front and the aft end over the gear leg from the back. What I did is cut the front half so that is one on the gear leg enough that the center of the axle was in 5e center of the flange (I messed that up on one of them). You will build a support to hold the outboard flange supported by the axle. I just used plastic pipe that I split to go around the axle cotter pin and insert about 2.5 inches into the axle. I wrapped the outer end wi5 carbon iber layup and put a rivnut in the end, It would later get match drilled using a hole finder and go right through the flange you made above. With the nose positioned I repeated for the aft end til I could connect the two halfes with clecos. At this point itslikely sloppy loose on the gear leg. I then made an angle bracket out of 2 inches into by 1/16” aluminum angle seen in the pictures. I attached it to the lower shock strut bolt. I then positioned the wheel pant so it was aligned perfectly in all directions and match drilled and clecoed the wheel pant to the aluminum angle. At this point you can use the hole finder to drill the axle support as well These two supports help stabilize the wheel pant for the injstallation of the strongest support which a 6 layer layup you will do between wheel pant the gear leg. But First dismantle everything and put a tape or stretch wrap release around the gear leg going 4 inches above and below the contact points of the wheel pant to the axle, Also cover the inboard end of the wheel pant with release tape so that the 6 layer layup does not stick to the wheel pant, Once you have all the releases in place reinstall the wheel pant and then due a 6 layer wet layup between the wheel pant and the gear leg. I had to make mine about 5 inches wide on the outboard side transitioning to 4 inches on the inboard because of my location that the brake line exits the gear leg, Do what you need to do, The objective is to have a strong support of the wheel pant to the gear leg.. But it needs to be removable so you have to keep it split on the back end (see pictures). After this layup cures, match drill it to the wheel paint.before you separate the two. At this point the bulk of the work is done, You need to put nutplates in every hole you drilled and you need to trim and bodywork the 6 layer layup and paint it and the angle support. I also installed an extra 4 layers x 3-4 inches of carbon around the gear leg hole perimeter on the inside eof the wheen pant to stiffen the ares of the nutplates and reinforce around the hole to give stiffness and limit wheel pant movement. At thiz point its just pretty things up and paint them for final assembly,
my apologies, i tend to be a doer and not a photo taker so i have no photos of my support fabs just the final product, also only 10 files are allowed to be attaches so i will send again the rest of my photos.
