So I began work on the Vega tonight. The laser-cut fins are great and essentially dropped out of the frets with minimal amount of sanding of nubs along the edges. However, you'll notice that the balsa is extremely
soft and I urge great care while sanding them it's very easy to sand through them quickly if you ham-fist things as I often do. I did have some foresight, I used the fret as a template and cut another set of small fins for,
just in case and it was a good thing that I did because I manged to snap one while sanding.
This is one of the smaller fins that I had to replace
I wanted to put a nice knife's edge along the leading edge, but again, use care, I sanded too fine of an edge and it split along the grain and left a divot that I will need to build up the edge again. In retrospect, I wish I would have soaked the leading edge with super thin CyA to hardened it more before I shaped it. Oh well, hindsight is always 20/20.
The rest I lived with putting a not-so-knife's edge on.
After the sanding, the shaping, and the cussing, I hit it all with sanding sealer to make it a little more rigid and to seal it for the thinned wood filler. I know some see this as an unnecessary step, but I think it helps in preventing the balsa from warping when you hit it with the thinned filler. Besides, I don't mind the extra work and the end results of the combination of several coats of sealer and then thinned wood filler makes for a smoother finished fin pretty much devoid of wood grain. Or maybe it's just me. So, I'll add a couple more coats of sealer before I call it a night and start on filling tube seams, marking the tube, building the motor mount, and landing gear tomorrow.