Many moons ago I enjoyed building balsa wood airplanes.
In between my plastic models,I would like to do it again.
Can someone please recommend a place where I can get the wood kit with the material that covers the wings and fuselage?
Does the material still get coated with dope?
I have no interest in making this an actual build that can fly via rc, engine or rubber band.
Hi Ed;
If you have a Hobby-Town or Independent shop near you, you should be able to find them. Guillows and some others still exist. The paper or silk should be in the kit. Before you say uh-uh, I have seen them in these places. It’s just being very observant while shopping these places. Also a Hobby Shop that specializes in R.C. Aircraft usually carries such products .They hope you will get bored with Rubber power, Control line Gas and go to R.C. That’s where the Money is for them.
As for Hot Fuel Proof, Dope, Well, I don’t know about that.There are probably less dangerous products out there to coat your plane with now.
Thanks Tanker_Builder. I’ll go check out Hobby Lobby and see if thay have anything. Unfortunately they are the only hobby store near me.
Still working on the M1A2 and hope to work on a Bradley after that.
I like these two models because I once worked for a defense contractor who manufactured training simulators for the DOD. I was assigned the tank and bradley systems. Spent many weeks having the vehicles torn apart so I could photograph them.
Once while at Aberdeen Proving Ground, I was given the opportunity to drive the M1A1 [:)]
Check out some of the online hobby shops as well.
I certainly will do that! Thank you
You can also order direct from Guillow’s website:
https://www.guillow.com/modelkits.aspx
I used to love building their WW1 fighters, but they’ve got lots of variety to choose from.
Used to build them years ago. Still have 6 of them in the stash. Been tempted to build one many times but have too much on the bench right now.
Jim [cptn]
Stay Safe.
I have their F6F, planning on covering with 1/32 balsa sheet rather than the tissue. Won’t be a flying bird, just a shelf sitter that should look better than the tissue covered version. Going to take a lot of sealer/clear before paint to smooth out the balsa.
I thought about covering one with clear wrap used for leftovers. Maybe putting just a little detail in it like a rough cockpit and control wires. Paint the frame and pit. Easily doable and might look half decent sitting up on top of the curio cabinet.
Jim [cptn]
Stay Safe.
Here are some places to look:
https://www.aeroaces.com/aeroaceshome.htm#home
The Guillows kits are OK to start with but the range is much larger if you build from plans and or laser cut short kits. Plans done by Earl Stahl are a great starting point, he did a lot of scale designs that are very well done.
There is a hobby shop called penn valley hobbies that is closed now but their mail order business is still going. A company called Easy Built models sells via their web site. THey manufacture balsa and tissue models. About half of their offerings are laser cut. There are several garage shop mfgs who offer some very nice kits. Do a google search for balsa flying model kits.
A good overview of balsa models can be found here:
http://www.stickandtissue.com/index.htm
Another good place to look is here:
https://www.hippocketaeronautics.com/hpa_forum/index.php
and here:
http://balsamodels.com/phpBB/viewforum.php?f=2
All these sites and forums are dedicated to stick and tissue, balsa models.
If you’re intrested in scratch building them at all you can go to arrofred for plans. Most are free.
Goldhammer,
I have a Corsair that I was going to build as a non-flying model. Maybe use the tissue to skin the balsa before painting? It might help. I built a Rufe (Zero floatplane) as a “flyer”, but I over tensioned the rubber band, which caused the spruce retainer shaft to plunge through the fuselage, wrecking it. The dope really worked well in getting out the wrinkles.
Sometimes I think going back to these “stick and tissue” models is a nice nostalgia trip to an age when modelers carved models out of ugly rocks! [:P]
That’s an idea G. Will keep it in mind when I get that far. Only just got a cork bulletin board as a build base.
I’ve used manila folder material. Responds to the same glue and it’s smoother.
Thanks GM, another good thought.
Since you’re in Florida, you could call Colonial Photo and Hobby in Orlando. I’m fairly sure they still have some kits there.
I think I saw a R.C. place or two on the edge of town.
It’s worth a shot.
Thanks to all of you who put links to sites. I have had a really nice trip back into the good old days looking at those sites. You’ve really given me the bug to build one out of my stash. A while back I planned to build one and ordered a supply of strip rubber. It’s up in the loft “somewhere”. Might be all dried out by now.[;)]
Jim [cptn]
Stay Safe.
I forgot to mention Dumas. They have an extensive line of balsa/tissue flying models. However, they are not very true to scale- the designs are modified to fly better. The horizontal tail surfaces are larger, and landing grear is longer to clear larger, non-scale props.