Play testing

Since I plan on mounting two 250 W solar panels and a 10 ft. dinghy off the targa bar, I vacuum bagged multiple layers of carbon fiber reinforcements over the core.

This resulted in a  super lightweight and strong  piece that showed very little deflection when loaded.

The photo is somewhat mis-representational in that the curve of this composite structure is molded in and I have not yet reached my full body weight. The keen eye may also take note of the clever use of a middle eastern camel saddle being used as the support for the Targa Bar.

As a final note, It's also safe to say that throughout all of written history, this may be the only time that a sentence containing both targa bar and camel saddle has been produced. If I may go further, this may also be the only time that a carbon fiber targa bar has come into actual contact with a sinew laced leather bound middle eastern camel saddle whose marriage resulted in a fine teeter totter which we enjoyed immensely.

Targa bar post cure oven

One advantage of not being burdened by corporate sponsors such as BMW and Oracle is that I am allowed to construct impromptu post cure ovens made out of things found inside a 20 ft. radius of the shop.........make that "Facility".

 

After disassembling the post cure oven, I am seen here performing a series of deflection test on the horizontal portion of the targa bar assembly.  As specified in Mil Hdbk 5, the test being performed here, involves placement of small vehicles along the upper surface.  To arrive at the streamlined cross section of the targa bar, I made thirty c clamps from 3/4 in plywood and pounded them onto the sides of this clamping jig.