Originally Posted by
dbacque
Another trick from the indoor free-flight fliers:
To sand to a desired thickness, place a piece of music wire of the right diameter on each end and use an aluminum sanding bar with very fresh sandpaper. Don't apply any pressure. Use very light strokes to let the sandpaper do the work. This will give you a consistent thickness. You can even sand tapers this way by using different sizes of music wire.
I glue the music wire down to a piece of scrap balsa and place the work piece in between the wires. It won't slip because the wires act as stops and you can't cut too deep. Plus your sanded surface will be flat.
Mark the wire sizes on the board and toss it into your jig box.
Dave
On the midwest Stearman I needed to taper a piece of balsa to set the incidence of the tail, I used a similar setup with two drill bits of the needed sizes to guide the sander. I started with a razor plane that I extended to lay on the drill bits. I will probably use this method for a current project that I need to thin down some stock.