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From: Chris Barber <cbarber@texasattorney.net>
To: Rotary motors in aircraft <flyrotary@lancaironline.net>
Subject: RE: [FlyRotary] Re: Steve Brooks Cozy
Thread-Topic: [FlyRotary] Re: Steve Brooks Cozy
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Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2011 17:12:01 +0000
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As y'all may remember I had strake failure (not flying yet) with Jeffco.  M=
uch speculation was made to it being due to the ethanol.  When I rebuilt th=
em I used the EZ84 that has been suggested as the most resistant.  Also, EZ=
84 is what the rest of the plane is build with and what the factory suggest=
.  The Jeffco was SUPPOSED to be my solution to such issues.  I sent some o=
f the bad glass to Velocity and they couldn't provide insight.  I believe J=
effco had or was being sold and I could not reach them at the time.

When I rebuilt the strakes (also noting how complex and heavy trying to wel=
d up aluminum tanks due to structural issues with the strakes and baffles) =
I placed a few cards in a can of ethanol fuel from my local gas station.  T=
he last time I checked, a few months ago, the EZ84 was still exactly the sa=
me as when I placed them in the vat.  That being said, so were Jeffco sampl=
es.  I will try to remember to check again if I make it to the hangar tonig=
ht.  They samples have been fuel now for maybe four years. (fuel replaced o=
nce from the same gas station)

I still have an unopened five gallon kit of Jeffco that I purchased when I =
was considering reusing it to rebuild.  If anyone is interested, I am sure =
I can make a hell of a deal on it....

BTW, rebuilding most of the strakes is NOT fun.  Actually, I just removed t=
he inner skins that had been coated with Jeffco, not the entire strake stru=
cture.  To this day, my build buddy, Dave Staten, and I are as certain as w=
e can be that we applied the Jeffco properly and eliminated pin hole issues=
.  But, alas, I still had the problem.


Chris Barber
Houston
Velocity 17010
________________________________________
From: Rotary motors in aircraft [flyrotary@lancaironline.net] on behalf of =
Chad Robinson [crobinson@medialantern.com]
Sent: Friday, December 02, 2011 10:45 AM
To: Rotary motors in aircraft
Subject: [FlyRotary] Re: Steve Brooks Cozy

I looked into what it would take to get these blow-molded, maybe with a
group buy from other builders. The complication is that the strakes are
a lifting body and are structural. The ribs are part of that structure.
They also serve as anti-slosh plates inside the tanks. Any solution
needs to include both of them. It's do-able: you just need a tank
blow-molded for each of the individual tank sections, then you
plastic-weld them together around the strake ribs. But it means you need
a bunch of molds...

At the time, I had already bought a batch of ProSeal, so I went with
that. It looks pretty good - guess we'll see how it holds up (it sure
wasn't cheap.) So I never finished the research.

The issue is there's a large group of rotary builders but a smaller
group of Cozy MKIV builders. Cozy builders with aircraft engines don't
need to deal with this - so it's an even smaller group. I'd be surprised
if you could get even 25 people together on an order, and you'd need
several hundred to make it economical to build the blow-molds.

One alternate plan I had tinkered with involved making a very
rudimentary mold in the shop, then heating a standard 5-gallon red
plastic gas can and using compressed air to "inflate/reshape" it. A very
thin wall is just fine (preferable, even). The structure comes from the
Cozy's strake structure - you're just making a liner. But it's a lot of
work and finicky to get it right. I also looked into bladders, but there
are maintenance and reliability concerns with them filling/deflating
properly in odd-shaped spaces.

Regards,
Chad

On 12/2/2011 10:48 AM, Ernest Christley wrote:
> I reluctantly made a decision to not trust sealing a gas tank to any petr=
ochemical that is shipped to me in a liquid
> form.  You never know what all those petrochemical engineers in Congress =
will decide mandate to be put into our fuel
> next.  So I welded a fuel tank and glassed that into the place that was d=
esigned for a fiberglass tank.  I would have
> preferred buying a premade poly-ethylene or aluminum racing tank, but I c=
ouldn't find one that even came close to fitting.
>
> Aren't the Cozy tanks just big cubes sitting inside the wing roots?  Woul=
d it be safer, and possibly easier, to buy a
> tank, sit it in the, and glass it into place?
>


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