I’ve been pondering leaving the gear up on the Hornet kit I’m building and making a stand out of 2 clear acrylic rods bent into a semicircular shape running from the tailpipes to a handmade wooden base.
What I was wondering is if any of yall have ever done anything like that and if so, where can I find acrylic rod that will do the job (3/8" looks about right). Also, if I can only find it in straight lengths (already found it online as such), how do you go about bending it to a perfect shape? I would need two exact bends so they would fit in the two tailpipes and fit evenly in the base I was planning.
this is a great post, I wish someone would chime in on an inexpensive way to make stands. You know, the old kits had those funky little plastic stands so you could show the plane coming in or going out. The idea of a plexiglass stand, very classy. How can we make them, where can we get supplies and please make it affordable and doable.
I have seen ‘Gate Guard’ aircraft mounted this way and they look very impressive indeed!
For the acrylic rod I would try a craft store, they seem to have things like this (I know Michael’s, a local chain up here, carries it).
For bending it, make a wooden jig that is exactly the shape you want, and fasten that to a larger wooden base. You will clamp the base to a table and then bend the acrylic around the shape of the jig, follow?
Use a hair dryer or heat gun to soften the acrylic, but go easy or else you can overheat and melt the rod. If things look like they will get too hot back off, wait a bit, and try some more.
One idea for the ends that will fasten to the finished base would be to drill holes into the end, thus hiding the rod ends.
Good luck, and let us know how you make out,
Bruce
Great post mattp, I’ve been wanting to do the same thing. Hopefully there will be several different replies so there are alot of methods to choose from. Bruce thanks for starting it on the right track, I think I’ll give this a try.
Has anyone tried using lamp parts (i.e., threaded rod, etc.) to make a stand? Any suggestions on how affix it to the model? Anyone come up with a load limit?
If you decide to use acrylic yopu’ll want to be careful with how you heat it to allow for the bend. I would suggest an oven as opposed to a point source of heat like a heat gun. I doubt very much that a hair dryer would get anywhere near hot enough to do the trick but perhaps there are some new nuclear powered models out that I haven’t heard about yet?
If you do heat in an oven, USE MITTS when pulling the rods out to bend them. The nice thing this affords is that the entire piece will be heated uniformly and you won’t run the risk of getting 80% through a perfect bend and then hitting a cold spot and snapping the rod in two.
