Here is what I would do. It's what I've done to make laminated formers for my glider project. I had one test on a 2" radius this way.
Order up a bunch of 1/16 basswood strips from
http://www.nationalbalsa.com/ figuring on 10% attrition.
For my steamer I used a length of 3" PVC with a T fitting, cap and a reducing bushing. The PVC was cut up to give me a length a bit longer than my strips, the T, and short capped segment in line, The bushing went into the 'branch' of the T. For the steam source, I went to Walmart and bought a Fry-Daddy tabletop kitchen fryer. I topped it with a simple funnel that then fit into the PVC T. The whole works was clamped to a couple of stands with the open end of the PVC pipe lower than the capped end. The idea is that steam will will the tube from the top down, and condensate will drain out the bottom. A couple of pieces of scrap inside the tube acted as a rack to keep the strips off the bottom, ie in the steam, not the cooler drain water.
Fill the Fry-Daddy with RO or distilled water, plug it in and be careful. It heats up real quick. Once steam is trickling out of the bottom of the tube, put in your strips, and stuff a rag in the end to keep the heat and steam in. IIRC, I figured 10min per 1/16 of material thickness. More time doesn't hurt anything, as long as your steam generator doesn't boil dry.
Pull the strips out (tongs - tongs are good!) and wrap around your form. Clamp in place and let cool and dry. Add a few pencil marks for alignment, and number the strips as each one with have a slightly different curve to them. Once all is cool and dry, you can unclamp the stack, glue and clamp them all back on the form. Once the glue sets, do whatever sanding or shaping is necessary.
One thought on adapting the process for your application. Since all of the fairings are screwed on, you can use those screws to clamp it in place. A simple pliers type paper hole punch will put a neat hole in 1/16 bass wood, so you could punch holes as you wrap the strips around and use screws to hold them in place. Since it's non-structural, you could use a glue with longish open time like Titebond to laminate them as you go. Lay down a strip punching holes as you go, slather it with glue and start laying the next strip down the same way, pulling out a screw in 'front of the curve' as you go.
Hope that made sense and was worth the read.
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JR
here's to the Anderson team that is building it.
