Let’s Build a Real Old-Time Balsa Model Airplane – Part 3
Let’s get started building a wing for our Comet Cub. Here’s a better look at that first rib. Can you figure out what I’ve done to it already, and what still needs to be done? This piece of balsa began its new life as part of a model airplane just a while back when I...Continue reading→
Let’s Build a Real Old-Time Balsa Model Airplane – Part 2
Let’s work on that stick-and-tissue Piper Cub some more. Here are the fully assembled tail surfaces. No, they don’t come out of the box that way! You already know that because we left off last time with the bare beginnings of the horizontal tail laid out on the building board. There was a lot left...Continue reading→
Let’s Build a Real Old-Time Balsa Model Airplane Part 1
We’ll start with a closer look at that picture of a ragged old cardboard box and the stuff I found inside it. Comet model airplane kits, as produced by Comet Model Hobbycraft, Inc. of Chicago, have been around since well before America entered World War II in 1941. Both their pre-War products and the model...Continue reading→
Converting Traditional Stick & Tissue Designs for Electric RC Flying – Fairchild PT 19A
The Fairchild PT 19A was one of the most successful of the U.S. Army’s Primary Training aircraft during World War II, and has always been a favorite subject for model builders. I converted this one from an Easy Built Models traditional stick-and-tissue kit designed for rubber powered free flight. In checking my files on this...Continue reading→
Going All-Out With A Classic Balsa B-17-F – Part 24
Last time I finished with the standard 1944 B-17F olive-and-gray paint job using my all-time favorite, Stits PolyTone Aircraft Coating and added the custom “Pink Lady” markings made for this project by Callie Graphics (http://callie-graphics.com/ ). I gave these vinyl markings a couple more days to dry and then added a single coat of Stits...Continue reading→
Going All-Out With A Classic Balsa B-17-F – Part 23
Last time we devoted a lot of attention to “plastic stuff”…windows and turrets. Those details are now in place and securely masked off, ready for painting (which is coming soon). Several series back I also mentioned getting some covering onto the control surfaces…elevator, rudder and ailerons…which are indeed the only “open” structure on a B-17....Continue reading→
Going All-Out With A Classic Balsa B-17-F – Part 22
Last time I showed you a pair of simulated-but-real-looking landing lights. Do you remember my discussion at the beginning of that installment about the ever-present need to weight the value of added detail against the value of the weight savings that doing without them offers? Those landing lights are a good example…I chose to include...Continue reading→
Guillow’s Articles
From John: I was very happy to see your article in the march 2018 issue of Model Aviation.I’m not very good with a computer. I subscribed to Fly RC for years and when I got april’s 2017 issue with your article What about all those Guillows kits ? I devoured it over and over. I waited...Continue reading→