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Richard Browns Personal Jet Pack
This a project to manufacture a one off set of prototype "ducting" for a new design of a personal jet pack. This is a project designed
and developed by Richard Brown Jet Packs (
www.jet-pack.co.uk)
Our glassfibre production shop LR Products have built the moulds and produced the "ducts" in wet lay carbon fibre using a vacuum bag system.
If you would like more info on this process and it applications
Send Email This is the first section removed from the mould, the parts are then trimmed accurately to the split lines in the moulds,
then the parts are returned to the mould sections. The sections are bolted together and the parts are bonded together using a carbon fibre tape
and a bonding epoxy adhesive. The Final job is to reinforce the mounting flanges and this has been done by simple hand lay techniques.
These parts are laid up using 200 gram carbon twill weave using a room temperature curing epoxy resin system, which uses a post cure
for the parts to reach their
full strengh. As these parts are for development use, the moulds are made using a vinylester tooling resin reinforced with chopped strand gloss fibre
mat reinforcement using a gel coat finish. The Gel coat is a tooling
Gel-coat as this type of product has a slightly tougher surface which resists cracking better. The master parts and the designs were supplied by
Richard and we improved
the surface finish getting the shapes to flow more smoothly before taking the moulds from the master part. This type of mould system is only
suitable for one off and
short run production in Carbon-fiber
These parts are designed to replace the previous designs shown on the complete assembly photos, to improve the thrust control.
Read Richard's Web page
for more info. This type of mould making parts using vinylester resin is the most economical method of manufacturing for one off parts
for development purposes.
There is a small down side that the surface finish, with wet lay vacuum bag components, is not as good as vacuum infused parts or pre-preg
parts. If a good surface
finish is required further processing is necessary and we recommend clear coating the part with a good quality UV stable product (most automotive
clear coats are suitable).
As many of the higher temperature resins available are not UV stable and yellow with exposure to sun light, clear coating stops this.
More views of the assembled jet-pack, showing the old ducts and the aero foil thrust direction control system which is being
replaced with gimbaled style
design as this should improve directional control,thus improving the overall control system.