For the fuse, you have to think about sanding in multiple dimensions.
Before we sand this, we should mark a couple points on the top of the glider as to where
the wings will be and as to where the tail will be.
On the very top, we’re going to measure 2 3/4” and draw a line.
That will be the leading edge of the wing.
And then 2” from there, since that is the chord, we’ll draw another line.
I kind of forgot what this one will be for the tail.
It is 9 3/8”.
So, we’ll measure out 9 3/8” right there.
And the width of the tail is 1 1/2” right there.
Which probably should give us an inch for a finger tip to pull back on the catapult
launcher.
Where I like to start on sanding is the underside.
If you notice, the tail is much thinner than the body, but I prefer to smooth out the edges
a little bit and make it a little more rounded.
We’re going to start on the bottom and we’re going to taper it down a little bit from here
and we’re going to taper it down to the trailing edge just a little bit more so I’m
going to use the rough side of my sander and work my way in there.
I’m going to get the edges a little bit.
Notice I am sanding the tail a little bit more right here like this and less up here.
I don’t want to overdo this.
If you get it too thin It’ll be too floppy.
Maybe a little bit more Ok, so, that’s one dimension— is the underside.
Now, we’re going to sand one side and also sand the other side but you have to keep it
balanced.
I kind of like to count my strokes starting from the bottom and working my way up.
And then I’ll flip it over and do it as well.
So, pretty much, like this…
There we go… and that creates a little bit of taper effect and it also lessens the weight
on the tail.
Again, the less weight on the tail, the less weight you have to add to the nose.
Keeps your glider light!
Ok, so now we go to the front part.
Now, I created these marks…
it’s very important this is where the wing will go and also this is where the tail will
go.
We do not want to sand in these zones right here.
We want to keep them nice and flat that way our wings will glue very nicely.
Let’s go ahead and round off the belly of the plane a little bit.
Pretty much same concept… going to work my way to the nose.
I’ll round off the nose.
Round off the edges here.
Now, I do not want to sand around the zone, so I’ll only go up to that point.
It’s all about aerodynamics, really…
Keeping it smooth.
And then I’ll go to the finer sander a little bit.
And round this off a little bit.
In this notch area I’ll take my little sander like this and kind of take off the rough edges.
Some places I can’t get I’ll use a strip of sandpaper.
I like to round off my shark tooth so it doesn’t cut into my rubber band.
There we go.
Now, It’s optional whether you want to sand the top part here between trailing edge of
wing and leading edge of tail.
You can do that if you like I haven’t noticed much difference in the glider flights whether
you do it or not…
It’s up to you.
And the tail, itself, you can round it off if you like.
Now, if you sand it too thin, you will run the risk of making it too flexible and breaking.
So, there is no real harm in kind of keeping a little bit thickness.
But you definitely want to keep it smooth and rounded and you will find out performance
wise, it’s great.
Let’s move on to the tail.
The tail is pretty simple.
I think we need to trim up the leading tips here.
Now, what we want to do with the tail…
there is no real difference between the top part of the tail and the bottom.
So, we want to keep everything equal… as many strokes as we sand on the top, we’ll
want to sand on the bottom.
I’m going to start off with the rougher sand paper.
The idea is that I want to thin out the trailing edge up to this point, right here.
And just create these a little bit thinner.
I want to have a little control…
some elevator control, so these trailing edges need to thin out so I can actually bend them
up or bend them down should I need to trim my glider.
So, we’ll start that off like this.
And try to do what you do on the top…
As you do on the bottom.
Don’t want to get too crazy, this glider flies great with little trimming.
But, should trimming be necessary, we do want to have a little control over that.
This seems pretty good.
If it’s too flimsy, then you can have bad effects on the airplane.
For the front, I’m going to use this sander and I want to round off the edges.
Curve them up.
Then I’m going to take off the sharp edges.
Then again, what you do for one side you do the same for the other side.
Ok…
There we have a nice tail.
Then we’ll move on to the main wing.
First off, I’m going to sand a kind of tapering effect.
I wanna make it thinner from the center point to the edge.
So, I want it to be a little bit thinner.
How I do that is by using the rough sandpaper block.
I kind of work my way in.
And duplicate that very motion, the very same sanding strokes, on the other side.
The next step is to thin it from the leading edge down to the trailing edge and we want
to sand the full length of the wing itself to thin that out.
This does take some time.
Want to keep a check on your thickness to make sure it’s balanced.
At this point, I’m going to flip it over as I want to create an under camber effect.
So, I use my smaller sandpaper, 220 grit, and I just want to sand right here…
Give it a quick smooth-over.
I’ll use this smoother sand paper to also sand the top.
Now we need to round the front edges.
As I draw the sandpaper I gradually bring it down lower, and lower, and lower…
like that.
Starts of kind of high like this, then I go lower, and lower, and lower.
I don’t want this too thin.
I want some stiffness so that it does not flop around when I launch it.
But now you want to sand a little bit on the underside.