Going All-Out With A Classic Balsa B-17-F – Part 4 During our last B-17 session in the shop, I finished closing in the top surface of the wing using my favorite “wet balsa sheet” method. You may have noticed then that I made no provision for the cutouts in each leading edge that are going […]
Finishing Those Foam ARF RC Scale Airplanes … Scaling-Out the Atomik RC/Sonic Modell EPO ARF B-17 Recently I devoted several weeks of workshop time to determine just how far I could go with fiberglass-and-paint resurfacing and refinishing of a typical large foam/ARF electric powered RC scale warbird … in this case the 61” wingspan J-Power […]
Converting the 30in Rubber Powered Dumas Piper J-4 to Electric RC…Extra Details and Flight Report I’m going to begin this flight report by catching up on some of the last-minute details I don’t want to miss telling you about, as well as by sharing a story about this airplane that might at first seem to […]
Going All-Out With A Classic Balsa B-17-F – Part 3 As I promised last time, during this session in the shop I’ll begin the actual assembly of the wing and you’ll get to see how the modifications for flaps (openings in the original structural design) that began as some newly cut-out places in several ribs […]
TOP FLITE Stinson SR-9 / Master’s Workshop Project Flight Report More than a few months (and a whole lot of dismal, gray winter weather) has passed since I shared with you the final Master’s Workshop column installment on building the Top Flite 100” span Stinson SR-9. It turns out that I have been involved with […]
Going All-Out With A Classic Balsa B-17-F – Part 2 Last time I finished “picking up where I left off” on this airplane ten years ago, dusting off the partially-built vertical and horizontal tail surfaces, and bringing the vertical tail and rudder up to the stage at which they are ready to be assembled to […]
FINISHING THOSE FOAM ARF RC SCALE AIRPLANES Yes, this really is a foam ARF airplane…with some extra time and effort invested. If you love model airplanes, it’s pretty much impossible to ignore all those electric powered RC scale jobs made primarily of expanded plastic foam of one variety or another. “Almost-Ready-To-Fly”, “RTF”, “Bind & Fly”, “Plug […]
Going All-Out With A Classic Balsa B-17-F – Part 1 For almost as long as there have been model airplane builders there has been the B-17. The first of them appeared in the late 1930’s. We aeromodelers as a group were around in significant numbers for only a decade or so before that. When the […]
Converting the 30in Rubber Powered Dumas Piper J-4 to Electric – Part 4 Before we actually get around to putting some covering on this model airplane, we need to talk about the process and materials I’m using…stuff many of you reading this may only have heard of, but never seen. So…I’m going to put on […]
A couple of weeks ago I got the following email message: Hi there, I recently bought a “Capitol Models Stinson Gullwing 54” Balsa model. I’m planning on building it and making a R/C flyer.It came with a giant blue print but no smaller detail instructions? Also some pieces are missing? I was wondering if you […]