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Sanding Compound Curves

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dvanlanen

Joined: 25 Jul 2006
Posts: 122
Location: Madison, WI

Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 9:36 pm Post subject: Sanding Compound Curves

I’m glad that I am not building a composite aircraft!  I think I have spent more time on the fiberglass tail tips than on any other task to-date.  The fit of the FTTs were far enough off that I could not correct the fit using a heat gun, especially near the front of the stabilizer.  So I followed another builder’s suggestion and used SuperFil (a great product!) to build them up to the point where I now have a great fit.  However, after “finish” sanding and priming them, I found that I have a few minor longitudinal “ripples” in the surface.  I need to smooth these out or they will really show when the FTTs are finish painted later.  Due to the compound curves, I don’t think it will work to just use a piece of hand-held sandpaper, or a regular sanding block, as I may not remove material from the right areas.  Does anyone have any “tricks of the trade” they can share with me for sanding out these ripples and getting to a smooth contour, without having to create some sort of fancy sanding tool?   

Dave Van Lanen  

601XL – finishing tail and getting ready to start wings 

     [quote][b]

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leinad

Joined: 19 Sep 2006
Posts: 283
Location: Central Virginia

Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2008 6:08 pm Post subject: Re: Sanding Compound Curves

Sanding by hand is the right way to go.  If you've really got ripples in the shape you'll need to fill in the low spots, and start again with very rough sand paper (I like to use rough belt sander belts) until you know the ripples are gone.  Then graduate to finer and finer paper.  You can use primer to fill in the sandpaper scratches and very small low spots.  The only real trick to the trade is to make your sanding strokes long.  Layers of different colors of primer can help you see the scratches and high spots.

Dan



[quote="dvanlanen"]I’m glad that I am not building a composite aircraft!  I think I have spent more time on the fiberglass tail tips than on any other task to-date.  The fit of the FTTs were far enough off that I could not correct the fit using a heat gun, especially near the front of the stabilizer.  So I followed another builder’s suggestion and used SuperFil (a great product!) to build them up to the point where I now have a great fit.  However, after “finish” sanding and priming them, I found that I have a few minor longitudinal “ripples” in the surface.  I need to smooth these out or they will really show when the FTTs are finish painted later.  Due to the compound curves, I don’t think it will work to just use a piece of hand-held sandpaper, or a regular sanding block, as I may not remove material from the right areas.  Does anyone have any “tricks of the trade” they can share with me for sanding out these ripples and getting to a smooth contour, without having to create some sort of fancy sanding tool?   

Dave Van Lanen  

601XL – finishing tail and getting ready to start wings 

      	  Quote: 	
		  [b]

- The Matronics Zenith-List Email Forum -

Use the List Feature Navigator to browse the many List utilities available such as the Email Subscriptions page, Archive Search & Download, 7-Day Browse, Chat, FAQ, Photoshare, and much more:

http://www.matronics.com/Navigator?Zenith-List

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