Time to fill the dents and gouges. But before I did that, I gave the flat portions of the fuselage some passes with a random orbital palm sander. This works wonders on plywood, removing CA blobs without cutting into the underlying wood as long as you keep the sander moving.


I got this sander for $12 on one of the Amazon Prime days last year (with free next day delivery)! If you keep it moving it's very safe to use on lite ply or anything harder.

My preferred filler is UPOL Dolphin Glaze, a two-part, fast-setting putty that sands like lite ply. It is fiddly to get the proportions correct, but becomes easier with practice. It is also quite expensive and hard to find in local stores, but a $25 investment should take care of at least four large models, maybe more.


Here's what you need to use Dolphin Glaze. From left to right: mixing cup, micro scale, plastic spreader (for large areas), mixing sticks (for blending and dabbing), glaze, and hardener.

On plywood I use an oscillating multitool with a sanding head to knock the glaze almost level with the wood and finish with a 240-grit sanding block.


I got this much of the fuselage filled with about 5 grams of Dolphin Glaze. You can start sanding it in about 20 minutes.



I filled these holes before quitting for the day by simply dabbing DG into the crevices. It hardened completely overnight.


In the morning, despite being as hard as it would ever get, the glaze looked like this after 30 seconds with the multitool sander and 10 seconds of swiping with a block.

Once everything was filled and sanded flush, it was time to do some rounding. The bottom edge of the fuselage should not be a sharp corner, for example. And there were other places where a little softening will look like tubular supports once the Ultracote goes on.


Surprisingly little elbow grease produced a nice radius where the fuselage slabs meet. I was trying for 3/32". What do you think?

Finally, I added a fake stringer to the fuselage side from under the rear window to the tail.




Time to cover! Oh, wait. I still have to prepare the wing.