The ARF was built according to the instructions. I removed the supporting hardware (flying wire as called in the manual) which supports the vertical and horizontal stabs, to help reduce weight in the back. I used a lightweight Sullivan tail wheel and associated hardware. It still needed 18 ounces of nose weight.

As Goirish said, ain't no amount of sanding that would help that thing. Heck, the entire tail doesn't weigh 18 ounces! It's just that the overall construction is solid, uses heavy wood with a lot of ply in the fuselage.

It flys like I would expect a Goldberg Tiger to fly ( I had a Tiger 60 and flew that for several years until I sold it, and I believe it still flys).. it did not require even a proportional amount of noseweight to make it balance. Another club member built one and, even with an OS 1.60 up front, it STILL required about 12 ounces of noseweight.

I never took Teeter Totter, but did take Basket Weaving 101 in college.

CGr.