Originally Posted by
Tdaffy
Thank you. All neat ideas so far. I actually rebuilt the bench. It wasn't too hard, and I think it will be worth the effort in the long run. I laid a fresh sheet of 1/4 inch ply, and think I'll go with the homasite idea. So far, I've gone through the instructions a couple of times, once while looking at the plans and have done inventory. It's amazing that somehow, this stack of wood and balsa will eventually be an airplane! Going to either pick up or fashion a good set of sanding bars...long and short, and invest in a good set of blades for the knife. (I always think in terms of you get what you pay for). That also applies to aircraft I've learned lol. Anyway, happy thanksgiving to everyone, and I'll hopefully be adding my progress as the time progresses. So far, the advice has been great. Lucky to have found you all.
The T-bars they sell at the hobby shops are light and very rigid as well as being straight. I use the heavy duty double sided tape with fabric mesh in it to hold the sand paper on the T-bar. Rolls of 4 inch wide sandpaper in different grits can be had fairly inexpensively at any big box store as can the tape. Keep the sandpaper off cuts they can be attached to shapes or small wood/metal/plastic pieces as specialty sanding bars or shapes as needed. Look in the big box store for a box of 1000 single sided razor blades. These work better and out last any exacto style blade. I only use the exacto blades for intricate cuts the razorblades cannot do. When it comes to cutting the iron on covering the single edge razorblades make the exacto blades seem like butter knives.
Dennis