Bulk 100 Foam Sheets and 2 Sample Gliders

Good News and Bad News About Foam Sheets to Make Your Own Gliders:

The good news: the new bigger better CNC hotwire machine (to cut the thin slices of foam) is working well. It took longer than I thought to build and de-bug, but now I can reduce the price of foam slices by 20% of what it was for years. It’s now $20 per hundred sheets. Or, if you do not want so much, then $14.50 for 50 sheets. Plus $5 flat rate postage in the U.S. ($5 postage regardless of how many you get; or for international postage you will have to email me an address so I can find the exact postage--ranging from $16USD to $19.55 [Australia]).

But here’s the rub:

You will have to contact me to order foam sheets (as opposed to ordering directly from the website for other products). Here is why:  The foam glider designs and building techniques are so much better than what is reflected in instructional videos made years ago when I was starting out. If you have experience building flying models or you are a hang glider pilot or something, then you can work off of and copy the two ready-to-fly samples provided. That is because you have an intuitive understanding of how to correct CG stalling or diving by adding or removing front weight; you understand terms like “dihedral” and “camber” and are comfortable with fiddling to get just the right glide, etc.).

If that’s the case, contact me (Slater), tell me what you want and I can send a PayPal invoice (you do not need a PayPal account for the transaction—PayPal just processes credit cards securely). And contact me any time you get stuck or have questions.

If, however, you are interested in walkalong gliders but do not have experience with making flying things, then I ask you to wait until I make updated glider-making videos—which I am beginning to work on now. In the meantime, ready-to -fly Jagwings—a particularly simple and flight-stable design—are a good way to start. Even with those, however, you have to handle them very gently.

Video about how to fly a Jagwing glider
Video about how to make a Jagwing glider (rough-cut, out of date)