hairy46

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Whats fun is to dig one out of the trash a d be flying it at the feild a week later!

Stickbuilder

What's really fun is to dig one out of the trash can and use it for kindling.

Bill, Waco Brother #1

hairy46

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Was'nt talking about arfs in general just anything thats been thrown away

acdii

Wait, is a kit built plane from a swap meet mean its an ARF!  OHNOES!!!!!!!

804

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Only fat, lazy people use arfs for firewood.

Stickbuilder

That's not very nice or hospitable there Bucky. What do you use them for, door stops?

Bill, Waco Brother #1

804

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"Bucky" Lol.
I re-build and re-use them, if they're not totally destroyed.
Done several of my own and several from others.
In fact, I used a trash can ARF from a flying buddy this summer
to win our club fun-fly, about $400 in gift certificates and prizes.

acdii

Youz guyz are gonna hate me even more now. Funtana 90 and Hanger9 Twin Otter are in the back of my truck now. :P


I also have a JR 12X/DSM along with a bunch of building supplies and glue.  The rest of the stuff are helicopters and batteries along with older FM radios. We will be taking them to swap meets of the next few months to help clear them out.

Live Wire

Who Died[&o]

Luchnia

My Feedback: (21)

A friend of mine was going to trash an AW 260 Edge. I asked him if I could take it and in a couple weeks had that bad boy in the air! I think it took me about 4 or 5 hours total. Flew the total heck out of that plane one summer until I got stupid and crashed it again. I did not fix it that time, but wow...flew all year for hardly any cost.

That is what I am talkin' 'bout!

Luchnia

My Feedback: (21)

How about those ARURs? ARUR = Almost Ready to Use Radios You have to charge them first then you can go fly

Don't you think a true stick builder should build their own radios and servos from the ground up? Oh, and what about the power plants for the planes?

This is way too much fun! [8D]

Stickbuilder

If you had started when I did, you would have assembled your own radios and actuators from a kit sold by Heath.

Bill, Waco Brother #1

Live Wire

Heath, Royal, Ace and the list goes on. Great times in the hobby That is what kept people in the hobby, Well we listened to our dog bark

Luchnia

My Feedback: (21)

Although I never assembled one, I do remember them. I was a young whipper snanper but I do remember some of the earlier radio technology. You had to make one sevo moving on a plastic type mechanism control various functions. The Heath radios were available and some new ones were starting to really swamp the market. Heath was losing ground if you had the dollars to go high end. Hobby shops were totally cool in those days.

I vaguely remember some of the older radios. One cheaper radio that comes to mind was called the Galloping Ghost or something like that - supposedly an affordable solution. I think it was junky and difficult to get good functionality out of it, if I remember correctly. There were some others along the same price range - I just cannot remember the names now. I was around ten years old I think that was around mid-sixties.

Technology was booming, but the quality radios were very expensive and only the big money players could play! [8D]

hairy46

My Feedback: (1)

Yes dumter diving for parts is great. I have a plane that should be done soon that is built out of three planes so far. It looks pretty cool the way it has all cometogether with the way it tappers back. Nothing else looks like it. Will try and post pictures when its done.

acdii

Well Sarcasm aside^^ Iam also picking up his lathe and tri axis CNC mill so I can make my own engines! Populare brand, but dang if I cant remember the brand name now, that I think starts with an S. Brand new never used. The guy had a stroke recently and decided to just find someone who can use this stuff. We will setup a day to take his stuff to the local swap meets, and he has a LOT of stuff, batteries, chargers, radios, helicopters, etc.

rye

My Feedback: (10)

hi
yes some arfs are junk some arfs need help, as a 20 year flyer and builder i have had some bad arfs and great kits i love to kit build i always add and take things out and its great to do your own colors now for arfs we had the 40 size rv-4 kits we build years ago and loved them and we all know they have there # on them for when they go in ,now as for arfs ,me and my freind just got done teaching our sons to fly and learn that we needed to go over the joints to make them stronger i see that arf makers use hot glue and i had 2 trainer that we got from airborne models when we check out the landing gear block we we able to put it out so we glued them in good and tristock the areas we needed two they are great flyers now arfs just need a little help to get close to kit building ,we bought two gaint rv-4 from graetplanes yes they are arfs but we took the covering off tristock what we need too gule the joints and recovered them in two diffenet colors they fly great but all in all kit building is going away i learn from a old guy when i started in the hobby had to kept crashing had to learn how to fix it and then he moved me on to kit building and then into strach building ,i builded 6 strached building , a lot of work but it something that you can be proud of my last one is a taursa love it ,i did some mod,s bolt on wing had to redesign the center ribs took out a lot of the deihal reshape the tail, etc we need to balance it and fly it now ,
what i want to say is if you go arfs buy a good name and go over it ,some people dont have the room or time to build ,and some of us who are lucky to have the room and time build, build on brother enjoy ,winters coming we are going to teach the boys how to build ,a G-P cub and a C-G tiger 60 size on both of them and a lot of parts from the ones that are in arf and kit heaven ,rye

hairy46

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For sure rye building is one of the fun part of this hobby. I never have much time to build but have cut out tv and other time robbing stuff and do find time to sit and relax on a build. Its what gets me though the long winters here in Wyoming!

Luchnia

My Feedback: (21)

Seems like quite the haul you got. I am glad you got some good equipment and it will be nice to have it at swap meets for other RC modelers to purchase.

acdii

I went though some of the stuff he gave me today, found some nice LED sets, and a dual strobe light set.  There's a few things I have I dont have a use for, like 2 JR receivers and some helicopter boom tubes.

J330

My Feedback: (3)

Missed 15 pages of this thread, but to answer Octobers acdii's opening comment:

I had a Great Planes Minnow wing blow apart on me on the 2nd flight, I packed up all the tiny scraps I could pick up and put them back in the box, and shipped it to Tower for a replacement. It was a known problem on the forum, the sheeting on the wing was held on mostly by only the Monokote.
Years prior I returned a World Models Sky Raider Mach ll to Airborne-models as the wing blew apart on that model (rare) and once I gathered those toothpicks, you couldn't see any CA glue on the joints at all. Again, that model was cheerfully replaced with a new one.

I pull and tug on all ARFs now to test their integrity. Some people peel off all the Monokote and reinforce all the joints routinely. Seems glue is a commodity they don't want to generously apply to the models with most ARF companies today. 90% of my hangar is now kit built, learned the hard way, ARFs seem more and more built for EP and not GP?

Print this thread with the photo and send it into SIG and see if they'll step up to the plate for you. If not, be sure to post their negative response. It's not like they're dominating the ARF market by any means. All it will cost you is a postage stamp. It can cost them what's left if their obscure ARF business.

acdii

You didnt miss much, just a lot of bickering over arfs and kits. SIG has replaced the ARF with a kit and covering, which I am in the process of building, and let me tell you, it will not fail from a poor glue joint! Unless someone gives me one, I wont be buying any ARF for quite some time. Some one did give me 3 ARF's, two are hanger 9, and one a Composite. The Composite really isnt and ARF when you think about it, since its a fiberglass fuse, prepainted, and the wing and tail are sammiched panels prepainted. Its more like a prepainted kit. The Hanger 9, yeah those are AFR's preassembled, precovered, put the gear in and fly.

J330

My Feedback: (3)

Good choice going to the kit. I've been reading magazine reviews Tower links on their ARF descriptions, http://www.rcuniverse.com/magazine/a...rticle_id=1182
After the arrival of my Zlin, the wing is foam core-balsa sheeted, and that's it's only good feature. The thin ply bulkheads and engine mount isn't positioned properly in relation to the fuel tank, it's far too high to the carb line. I guess inverted flight wasn't a consideration, or they call GP/EP really EP and you're a sucker if you still use glow? Great Pains must give away the plane to get good reviews. The covering is horrible, bubbles and bags, and with an iron, it simply won't shrink. The CA hinges don't have enough glue on them, you can pull the elevator and rudder loose. I put it all back in the box and stuck it in the closet, but first I'm building an Astro Hog on the dining room table and the Kavalier kit on the back porch! The Hog gets a nice bench ran antique HB 61 ($40 here on RCU) and the Kavalier gets a HP Gold Cup 40 that tucks nicely in the narrow cowl on this kit without sacrificing power. I got the Gold Cup from the same seller for $20! I love how EP has made glow engines so affordable now!

sensei

Heath-Kit also had tachometers you could build from their kits, but boy am I glad those days are gone, although it gave me something to do back then, I will take today's 2.4 technology over anything from back in the day. I still remember the keying up of those CB radios as our R/C models would crash, no thanks...[]

Bob