I use a 6" foam pad on an orbital polisher. Much better control, you can use plenty of soapy water with the cutting or polishing compound, no chance to get dry. For final waxing, use a buffing cotton wheel on your Makita and work some stick wax into it. That's how the glider manufacturers do it.
Tip: When you are sanding mark the area with a marker. With each finer sandpaper mark a bit bigger area and with each step of polishing mark a bigger area so you wont end up with matt edges and polished center. You are welcome ;)
Cutting backwards on an edge like that will also QUICKLY cut right through the entire paint coat, even ignoring your well spoken the risk of damaging things. When I did cars I usually just hand rubbed raised edges and corners or hit them VERY quickly and lightly with the buffer. Nice work, finish looks first rate. It will be interesting to see if there is any measurable difference in performance.
@@PureGlide Yup, but I always found spot fixing to be a pain, though a lot easier with some types of paint than others. Always difficult to make totally disappear, but if you HAVE to do it, I think white is the color I would pick...NEVER black.
You mention that you had repainted the glider and it took about 8 weeks. I can't find any other information about your repaint, and I imagine if you were able to publish a video you would have done so. It looks as if you did a good job My Ventus CT needs the same. I'd be grateful for any pointers you could offer, and I'm sure I'm not alone. If you find yourself stuck for a subject, I think it could work as a talk, even without video of work in progress.
Hi yeah I never did make a video on it- it was tricky as it was so messy. But I did post pics on Instagram, so check that out. My tip is do it with someone experienced!
That might be true, but talk to your glider engineer if that's a good idea. I know some people have tried it. There might be a downside if you need to do a paint repair, unless there's a way to get it off... I'm sure there must be
Hello Tim... I just bought a glider and had to remove the registration number using acetone with no issues since the base was gel coat. I wet sanded the area with 3000 grit to remove the old paint tint that was still there. Should I cut the gel coat before waxing? Also... how did you paint on your competition numbers? Did you make a vinyle template? What type of paint did you use. Most everyone is telling me to use vinyl, but I prefer to paint the number if its not to tricky..thx
Hi, a 3000 grit is almost a cut in itself! The highest grit I ever tried was 2000. I would try just polish, see how it comes out. If you can't get that shine then yes do a cut then polish. Depends a bit on what cutting compound and polish you have? Ideally you do that before the wax, so that you don't have to get the wax off to cut or polish it more.
Yes we painted the rego on, using a vinyl stencil. We used 2 pot paint, just like the white on the rest of the glider (different brand). You can see much of the process on my Instagram, just go back in time a year instagram.com/timbromhead/
Looking good! I was researching the Ventus CT with the sustaining power plant. I see there is also an "M" self launch that they manufacture. Cool stuff! I'm 6' 2" is there a choice of "B" cockpit for the CT?
Hi I’m 6’4” and fit in the Ventus C with parachute and without the seat back installed. The B and C have the same size cockpit AFAIK. Only the A models have a skinny cockpit. This applies to newer Ventus too as well as Discus.
Thank you @PureGlide. This is good to know. I've never seriously studied sailplane design. In 1967 and 1968 I was the 1/2 A speed first place champion in the American Modeler's Association (AMA) Southwest Region competitions. Since I was just a kid competing against everyone, most of which had much more experience. Winning this championship 2 consecutive years made an advantageous springboard connecting with pilots of full sized aircraft. My family weren't aviators and hated me flying solo at 14 years old. Concerning hydrodynamics/aerodynamics I've demonstrated an unexplainable intuitive gift of what has best been termed as TLAR (That Looks Abought Right) throughout my adult life that translated to boat hulls and developing boat hull lofting plugs up to 39' (11.89 M). I'm a chemist and have custom blended composite resins and pigments since 2008 for the marine industry. I've learned much with custom composite blends for less expensive formulations designed to be harder, craze resistant, UV resistant, slicker, stronger, vibration dampening, composite matrixes that save materials and weight. I'm exiting from the marine industry duties to get back to my true love and passion of aviation. The marine craft and modifications we custom fabricated utilized composite aircraft techniques that were tested on water. I'm gearing up to start sharing these type findings with the DIY market. Experimental GA to me is the path of producing better than currently manufactured machines. Promising higher performance, longer design life, better reliability, less expensive and with thanks to the internet, findings can be confirmed and demonstrated as we collaboratively develop our modifications and personal preferences. This intuition I mentioned earlier facilitated an ability to mathematically plot and benchmark a simple graph that I'm convinced the master aircraft designers in the early days of aviation referenced 1900s moving forward. This chart for scalable design parameters for conventional aircraft I plotted last year. Backed up by math and geometry however I was surprised that with just a few rules of thumb that the parameters of design based on the angular plotting of 5.625 degrees combined with 3-6-9 relationship basic airfoil slide-rule from model to full scale and beyond. Once the size of the cockpit and cargo area are known and the max weight to propulsion established with intended operating altitude ceiling established, surprisingly the optimal CG ranges for control surface influence practically lay themselves out with conventional successful aircraft designs. Facilitation of speed is simply finding the balance of changing the airfoils chord line with flaps with conventional aircraft. Being careful not to induce parasitic drag. I'm finding that understanding Burt Rutan designs fall into this category with the winglets serving triple duty as fuel savers by reducing aerodynamic drag associated with vortices that develop at the wingtips as the airplane moves through the air, rudders, and speed brakes. A fact that somehow I missed till this week. Fuel efficiency of doing more with the same thrust... Finding the compromises of hole shot, low-end, midrange and top-end performance with balance of fresh, brackish and saltwater environments with ever changing weather chop has been a commissioned work I've enjoyed for many years. I picked up on the mathematics when I was working with modified programming code for sailboat autopilots. The goal was smoother transitions of gusty winds related to course. knowing very little about sailplanes at this time I want to see and benchmark successful sailplane designs to see if they utilize laminar flow wings or lenticular? Or a mixture of both? I suspect that the basic angular layout will prove out to be 2.8125 degrees or there about. We Shall See... Torsion wing structure for gliders look like were established with the Le Breguet 901S with wood construction. Since 1977 a moonlighting work has been removing wood structures from high performance marine 5.5 M ~ 12 M units and replacing them with composite matrixes that have proven in the marine industry preferable as condensate rot is avoided and is weather proofed in the marine environment. I'm talking to a guy in France who flew this machine and he is relating that it shuddered in the thermal close to stall but the climb was almost doubled compared to competitors of the day. If I'm reading him correctly, designing in this pronounced shudder was the main indicator of finding thermals that the pilots felt. Just prior to instruments to detect these thermal lifts. He explains that modern gliders don't have this pronounced shudder and are more difficult to fly without modified VSI instruments. I'm looking for the Pilot Operating Handbook (POH) for the Ventus. I found this: www.easa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/dfu/EASA-TCDS-A.301_Schempp--Hirth_Ventus_powered_sailplanes-02-07112013.pdf If anyone knows of a better resource please direct me there. Finding the Le Breguet 901S POH translated to English if available might also be helpful in starting this research project. Thank you for your time and input. As pilot I'm finding the language of gliders have nuances that I'm unfamiliar with. An overall plan goal is to design a 4 place GA aircraft starting with a rolling hanger (enclosed trailer) Maybe motor home, that has a system to store the complete aircraft and servicing tools with removable wings with transport lockdown system that 1 person can safely load and unload and be ready for flight in 15 minutes or less. The Raptor Aircraft project has my attention and performance specifications that I'm desiring. I'm blaming Peter Muller for getting me back into the habit of GA with Raptor. Many changes are rapidly developing that will offer pilots operation in the safer class "A" positive control IFR airspace that was once unaffordable to classic GA. I'm finding that glider pilots have been operating close to this environment for much longer than I ever suspected... We are definitely living in the future... Let's make it a good one... Best wishes everyone...
Hi Will. The Ventus B and C share the same fuselage. I fly a Ventus B and I´m 6' 2" as well and i fit easily, so you shouldn´t have any problems there.
I was previously too terrified to take an electric polisher to my glider, it’s however all about technique. Thanks for the informative video. What would you use to remove painted on reg numbers, I need to reregister mine after moving countries and they’re painted on?
Do be a bit careful, you can heat it up too much, or be too aggressive and take off too much paint! Just don't sit on one spot for too long, and be very careful around the edges. But otherwise it's not too difficult. As for removing painted reg numbers, best to talk to a glider engineer about that. Likely it'll need sanding and repainting the whole area, so not a small job. Consider simple vinyl lettering if you're likely to change it again. Here's some pics of the process to remove the rego off OP and repaint the whole tail and rego imgur.com/a/Fp1iQl9
Thank you! A lot. It was about 320 hours for the painter. Plus I was there almost the whole time as well so I dread to think how many hours between us...
