Hi Bob. I have only made a couple of vacforms but I believe I stumbled upon a way to greatly speed up initial sanding. I bought a pack of drywall sanding screens, "very fine grit". These are a two sided metal grid sandwiching a thin sheet, not regular sandpaper. For our purposes these are in fact very coarse grit, however, they make very short work of thick trailing edges, fuselage seams, etc. but sand finely enough to allow a good deal of control. A lot of sanding can be accomplished before cleaning the screen, and the cleaning is just a quick rinse with running water. The sheets are inexpensive and long lasting. Look for them at hardware stores. Definitely worth a try.
Wayne.

Wayne I have used plenty of drywall screens while hanging board, but I never saw a sandwiched screen. We installed the screen onto a pole sander.I will look for some at my hardware store to see if it cuts down on my sanding, thanks for the idea.

Bob

I split the rear of the canopy trimming off the access now to either purchase a Squadron set or try to make one myself .

Bob

Bob, I never even saw this thread. You've done some pretty sweet work on this kit so far. I have always been scared to death of vac kits and don't even have a single one in the stash. Having read through this entire thread though makes me see that it can be done.

Nice work!

Hermon

I missed this project so far. Very interesting.

Vacform is really not for me after having tried a few vacform buildings and conversions. I admire your work, Bob.

Your build looks great so far. It will be interesting to follow to the end.

Hermon, Jesper, and everyone else, thanks for the kind words:
Well the holidays are over so back to the practice. I took Brinker's advice and tried the drywall sanding mesh and it worked very well,less than a 1/4 of the time it took to use wet sandpaper and water.

The Drywall Screen (sanding material)


upper and lower wing after sanding.


Wing upper glued together.


Wing lower glued together. The landing gear will not be cut out until after attched to the fuselage.


This is the hardest and most delicate part of the model for me, attaching the wing to the fuselage with the correct dihedral .





after attachment of the wing to the fuselage and I have made sure of the correct placement, dihedral I will cut out the landing gear area then place blocks that will accept the landing gear. That is for another day see ya later.

Bob