Balsa nova

Modeling Subjects Aircraft
1

Ok, two years ago, I got started into modeling with a christmas gift that was a large box full of sheets and sticks of balsa wood and tissue paper. It was difficult to imagine that this pile of stock would build up to look anything like an airplane. I opened the box and said rrriiight! and promptly put it away for months.
Finally, I was curious enough to actually get started, and put this thing together. I don’t know how many of you have built any of these, but I must tell you, that although very different to plastic kits, It was a lot of fun, and a huge challenge. Giullow’s is the manufacture, and has been around for eternity, literally. They offer many different types of aircraft, Corsair, thunderbolt, PBY,Mitchell, etc. These things are designed to actually fly, if you care to go they extra steps to add an engine and control servo’s. The stucture is very similar to a real aircraft with formers, ribs, and stringers. The only bummer was you must carve the propeller out of a block of wood. i’m still spinning after that one.

Anyway…I was wondering if any of you guys have ever built one of these? I’ve never read any posts about these models, or seen any photos. My first balsa kit was the “Spirit of St. Louis”, and I’ve also built this SBD. If you want to do something enjoyable, challenging, and a change of pace, I would recommend you give one a shot. BTW… now I’m a plastics nut.[:D]

cheers,

Jerry



I put the coke can in the photo so you can see the scale of this plane.[:D]

2

dragonfly;

It has been a few years since I built one of these. Yours is fantastic. My biggest problem was always getting the wings covered. Since reading your post I have discovered buried waaaaaaaay in the back of the pile of “to build” kits is a Guillow’s Spitfire that I now realize why it is there. I received it about ten years ago as a gift. I couldn’t build it. It did not have the blueprint drawing. Brand new kit. No instructions. I mailed a request to Guillows twice. No response so I gave up.

I will find out the Kit# and if any one out there has a spare set of plans or could mail me a copy. Let me know.

Cheers;

Gregory

3

Gregory,

Wow…if you dont’ have the blue print, there’s no way to build. I found out on my first build that pining the keels and formers to the plans must be very accurate and precise or nothing will fit later on. It’s a shame Guillow’s did not respond to your request, maybe they’re out of bussiness, I don’t know. Also, I discovered that covering the plane was easier with the tissue wet. When it dried, it pulled nice and tight to the surface.

Jerry

4

Looks wonderful Dragonfly… Balsa Nove… Cracked me up hehe

I have eyeballed these kits but little to scary to me.

5

Oh lord yes! From the middle of the 50s thru the early 60s, I probably spent 40% percent of my small disposable earnings (ie allowance, lawn mowing, snow shoveling, pop bottle collecting etc) buying, building, flying and crashing models produced by Comet, Goldberg, Guillow and various other producers of wooden model aircraft. (another 40% was spent on plastic models)

Comet Models were probably the most prevalent (They’ve been around since the early thirties I believe). They had various lines out with wing spans from 10" (Fokker D-7, 10 cents ea) up to 56" (Douglas A-26 and Aeronca Chief, 2 bucks ea). Everything was printed on the balsa, not die cut, all the cowls had to be carved and except for the largest line, the spars were 1/16" balsa. Except for the smallest, the props were twisted blanks of 1/8 or 1/4 inch balsa that you had to finish carving and sanding to shape. My buddies and I tended to concentrate on the 24"/26" line which contained TBF, F6F, P-40, P-51, SBD and Spitfire to name a few.

Then somewhere around 57 or 58 along comes Guillow with its line of WW 1 aircraft. Fokker Triplane, D-VII, Camel to name a few. 18 to 22 in wing spans, die cut balsa, vacuformed cowling (and canopies with more modern aircraft), decals, larger spars, and proper sized plastic props. We thought we had gone to heaven.

Nowadays, I get the urge to build a stick model (not necessarly to fly though) every ten or fifteen years. The last one was 8 or 9 years ago, a Comet Aeronca Chief which I built up and gave to a friend of mine who owned a real one (I used that for detail references) so I’m probably about due to build another.

And by the way, you did an excellent job on your SBD - I especially like the flaps/dive brakes.

6

I built several, but many years ago. Certainly haven’t built one since the early 60’s.

You did an excellent job on the Dauntless.

Regards, Rick

7

my dad built a guillows cessna 150 a while back for his father… I’ve got a little bird dog in my stash, too. I’m pretty scared to build it though!

8

You did an excellent job on the SBD. The paint job is fabulous. I have built 40+ large RC models over the last 35 years, so I can understand the amount of work that you put into your model. Guillows models not the easiest things to put together.

Darwin, O.F. [alien]