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 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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
Going All-Out With A Classic Balsa B-17-F-F – Part 21 Hey, this stuff is starting to get interesting! Getting this B-17 ready for that first flight is pretty much down to “detail work” now. As I mentioned once or twice before, I could pretty well just add some control surface covering, stick some props on […]
Going All-Out With A Classic Balsa B-17-F – Part 20 It’s time for more detail work…all the “little stuff” that brings out the “scale” in scale aeromodelling. Like other small/fine details that represent actual structure (as opposed to markings which exist only on the surface) all these things need to be completed before I can […]
Going All-Out With A Classic Balsa B-17-F – Part 19 I’m going to pick up right where we left off the last time we got to work on the B-17. You may remember that I explained why I felt that those really lightweight plastic cowls needed some stiffening so they’d stand up well over time […]
Going All-Out With A Classic Balsa B-17-F – Part 18 As it turned out I decided to finish-sand those overlap-joint-buildups later, as part of another big sanding task that’s coming up soon. Instead, we are starting off this time with some of the final details of the flap and aileron installations. There’s going to be […]
Going All-Out With A Classic Balsa B-17-F – Part 17 It has been a while since we did any work on the B-17. Several months ago I hinted that there might be some changes in the works, and left it at that. In fact I have been busier than you want to know with some […]