Author Archive: Bob
How to use “good old silkspan” as a covering and finish base (part 2).
I ended the last session on this project in a pretty much arbitrary place, based mostly on trying to split it all up into several more or less equal size installments. This time we’re going to pick up exactly where I left off, but…first I have to address a question brought up by reader
Restoration Log 1 Grandpa’s Cub
These before-and-after photos document the results of some dedicated restoration work by Bob. Why would anybody pay us to do this? Wouldn’t it be a lot easier, faster and less expensive just to get a new model? In this case our customer wanted to have us create a family heirloom from the actual remains of […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Taylorcraft Tales
The first model airplane I built to be a no-excuses electric-powered entry for the US Scale Master’s competition was this ¼ scale 1941 Taylorcraft BC-12D. It took me two years to build the model, which first flew in 1997. This photo was taken on the RC Scale event ramp at Muncie, IN in that year. […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]