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 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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
The new edition of Hey Mister,Will It Fly? is just off the press and ready for sale, and you can purchase your own copy right here. Please go to our Bob’s Books tab, scroll down to Buy Now, and follow the shopping cart prompts.
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 […]
Carl asked earlier about my older blog post “Building the Sig DO 217 kit (1)” and then added this question: Hello, Excellent build! I am about to build this kit and I noticed you added a tail wheel. I want to do the same but I’m wondering if yours was in a fixed position or […]