Notice how messy the edges are. Thats because I squeegeed all the excess resin towards the edges. This is later trimmed after cure.
I then hung my little room heater over my bench to post-cure the part. I had a thermometer sitting right next to it and adjusted the heater fan to give me a surface temp of about 160F for 3 hours.
I did not knife trim since I figured I would cut it later using my band saw. After cure, I traced the lines I needed to cut.
And presto! A lovely load beam to experiment with and give me the reassurance I need to say "Hey, I can actually build parts out of foam and resin!" Not only does it serve as a confidence piece, but it also let me see how strong this stuff is!
The plans have you place the beam over a broom stick and apply all your weight while holding on to the ends (like a balancing act). The beam not only held my weight, but I tried jumping on the thing to break it with no avail! This stuff is strong!
