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yeah, getting aluminum honeycomb, or honeycomb in general, to lay nicely over complex compound curves is inherently a challenge. It has massive compression strength. Shear, not so much, like you mention. Depending on the complexity of the geometry, you can sometimes carefully scarf, and bevel, core to make them flex, bend, or conform better. Sometimes you must cut the core into many sections and lay them side by side, instead of one continuous piece. It definitely can be tricky. Getting resin within the combs themselves shouldn't happen, if you're using the proper materials that these were designed around. Prepregs. If you're using these types of cores, you should NOT be using hand layup. That defeats the purpose. Very much like a laminate that includes both chopped strand mat, and a carbon fiber skin. That is not a "carbon" laminate. That's mostly fiberglass and the carbon is doing very little, if anything, to the structure of the layup. You see virtually no weight savings over the "fiberglass" versions...and the carbon isn't even allowed to do its job... It's simply a more aesthetically pleasing cover, which there's nothing wrong with...just stop calling it a "carbon X". If you're using prepregs and honeycomb it is a breeze. The prepreg fabric only has enough catalyzed resin for itself, so you must use a sheet of "film adhesive" (a literal sheet of catalyzed resin) to join the fabrics to the core. The film adhesive is just enough resin to, in a perfect world, form a little meniscus over the top of each of the combs, holding a firm and uniform bond between the skin and core. If it is too resin rich, the laminate becomes heavier (like you said) and brittle. Resin rich comes from hand layup. In a perfect world, when you test the physicals of the laminate, the core itself will fail, and the skins will not delaminate. high density foams are a wonderful material, and work well in combination with honeycombs, but as you can see from even my brief touching on the topic...there is a lot of variability, and tailor-ability to composites....which is one of its greatest advantages. If you understand the materials, and how they are designed to be used, you can customize the laminate to do exactly what you want, where you want. Only robust in those areas that need it, or strong in a certain force, while others areas that don't need said requirements can be as lightweight as possible. I think the main reason behind most doors being metal is simply it's the best bang for the buck. It's wonderful at dispersing load, and provides good intrusion protection. You will absolutely see a weight savings with a carbon, cored, door over its metal counterpart - but doing so would add exorbitant cost and effort. As far as physical performance, the carbon door would be superior in virtually every way, but only if properly constructed. If not properly constructed, it could be devastating. I was extremely lucky to learn from, quite frankly, one of the Composites wold's leading authorities, Henry Elliot. Now a head consultant for the Oracle Team USA Americas Cup team. I oringinally had planned to make full carbon, FIA legal, composite doors while at school. When I told him about the project, he raised his eyebrows big time... Basically told me not to do it....he told me that the juice was not going to be worth the squeeze. "if ten pounds is what makes or breaks your race, you're on an entirely different level of skill.....Don't sacrifice safety for weight, that's not how composites are supposed to work." "don't sacrifice safety by chasing numbers." is essentially what he told me. If you aren't going into making doors with these thoughts in mind, you shouldn't be making doors. That's my humble opinion.

Never thought about it but it but it would work... I love how at the end he says "now you have seen how easy this is to do". That looks like 4 days worth of work for 4 corners.