The first SEAX (the prototype)turned out very "prototypish": heavy, ugly, and the result of my lack of experience with moulding.There are however some light in the tunnel:

- It can not possibly get any heavier, so from now on I am looking at improvements only!

- The wings are an overkill in use of carbon.Very stiff in both bending and twisting, so the next set will be much lighter.

- The fuse front portion is even stiffer than expected due to the way I mounted the servo tray. My philosophy of leting the larger dimention take the load works.

- The tail and wing to fuse connections works fine. With practice this is meant to give weightsavings.

- The all internal towhook that I got from Peter Hoffmann worked like a dream(he probably knew that already).

Fuse mould closed for hardening.

This piece is glued precicely into the fuse during closing of the mould. Weight 8-10 grams.

The rear lower part of the mould comming of. So far so good.

The canopy cutout on the SEAX is not part of the mould. It consists of sheet rubber taped to the inside of the waxed mould. This is the prototype with too thick rubber and no pigment for the epoxy/microbaloon filling. Size and location of the cutout can be adjusted along the way.

The fuse mould has a sad looking finish, but the technical solution works. The fuse is moulded as upper and lower part joined with a flange moulded with inlays on the lower part. Weight as it appears in the picture: 220 grams. I think I need to go to 230-40 grams to stiffen the tailboom. This is the prototype fuse out of the mould.

Wing skins beeing sucked.

My V-tail moulds were made so that I have the option to vary the size of the V-tail. The first tail was full length, but the last one is about 20mm shorter.

The shorter tail is only slightly lighter than the big one, but still the pitch response is much better with subsecquent decrease in elevator deflection in all phases of flight.

When I learn how to make it really light (80-85g as oposed to the 100g on this one)this could be really fun:-)

The picture shows short tail put back into the mould with the loose innlay that is used during moulding.

The long tail also uses an inlay(not in the picture) to mould the correct angle of the root.

The second Seax flew OK, but was still rather heavy at 2.6 kg(note the use of past tense....). The joiner box was made of fiberglass and not too well made either, and saw it fit to split on the top of the launch during a start in moderate wind. Exit Seax II.

Well, I have epoxy in the bucket, carbon on rolls and the moulds waxed and ready. Seax III tok about two weeks to get ready.

This sample weighs 2400 grams and is the last of the prototypes that I initially granted myself. This means that from now on I should be able to make models light and strong enough to compete with them.

The layup on this model is better than on the previous ones. I can reduse the flying weight further by improving my thechnique on this layup rather than using a new one next time. 2200g should be within reach.

The joiner box on this Seax was made from cevlar and glued into the wings with epoxy and micro fibers as oposed to micro balloons. This method is strong enough for the loads imposed during launch and zoom.

The model is noticeably lighter on the motions around all axis due to the weight reductions from the previous one. On the third start in moderate wind the wings folded again..

Just as on the previous one the fuse tok a nosedive from 200m while the wings came down like atumn leaves and landed 20m in front of a wobbly-kneed test pilot. They looked suspiciously intact.

I have made two joiners, and used the light one for this flight. It had collapsed in the middle. The model suffered a broken tail boom and a dented leading edge. Two evenings later it was ready for flight.

The second joiner(30g heavier)holds up ok during launch, but yesterday I dowe too far on the zoom, wraped the line around the nose of the model and never recovered. Exit Seax III.

I have done some serious thinking, and have desided on a new philosophy regarding making my own models.