acdii

This builder is graduating from strict kit building to kit bashing. Finally starting my Biper Cub. After this I might take on the plans built P-61. It is a box of laser cut parts, but its not a kit, just a box of parts, all the rest I have to supply and figure out what goes where based on the plans. After that and a Citabria thrown in the mix, I have plans for a B-25 which will be hand cut instead, and may incorporate some foam and carbon fiber in place of some parts to lighten it up.

As far as time limits, I have one plane that can stay up for at least an hour, but I would get bored with it by then, but can stay up longer than most electrics can. I also dog fight pattern fliers, p!$es them off to no end when I match their patterns with a T-Clips.

rm1963

Not everyone have the space, time or skill's to build. ARF's are in most cases less expensive,
and 80% of finished products are more likely to perform better and be safer to fly.
In these times of crowded fields; some of the ho-made contraptions could only fly if they
were inside an airplane!

HoundDog

My Feedback: (49)

I've seen the way some repair a crashed ARF ... Lucky it even flies ever again.

Thank GOD for RCU and Swaps/Auctions

DSDRC

Not calling myself a builder, but having fun trying my first kit!

VincentJ

Nice, have fun with it! You will learn so much from your fist build. Making mistakes and learning from them are part of the process...Looks like you have made very good progress.

sensei

+ 1

Bob

mattnew

My Feedback: (2)

looks great, keep at it, you'll be calling yourself a builder in no time.

mattnew

My Feedback: (2)

I keep reading this and saying "not really"... not trying to start a fight, and not trying to attack you, but I hear these statements often... and I just want to comment....
If someone wants to build, the space needed is not much more than the space needed to build an ARF, I started in my family room on a coffee table.
if someone wants to build, the time to go to where your work area is is a lot less than the time it takes to get to the field... and at 9pm at night when the kids are in bed, you aren't going to the field anyway... you can find the time if you really want to do it
if someone wants to build.. they will learn the skills.. if you can put together an ARF you have most of the basic skills necessary to build your first kit. and once you start, your skills grow and you ( hopefully ) will get better.

If someone DOESN'T want to build.. there are ARFs for that, and thats fine, my point is if people don't want to build they can just say that and don't need excuses. :-)


as for better and safer....
better: I have 4 ARFs in my stable that are current flyers. I am of the opinion, ( and a company is welcome to prove me wrong ) that in order to mass produce a ready to fly or ARF plane you have to make compromises in the assembly and design in order to make them quicker and cheaper. I think these compromises don't necessarily exist in scratch built or kit built planes as the cost of construction is passed on to the consumer... There are some good ARFs out there..I just feel that if you build it yourself and don't make the compromises that are inherent in an ARF ( hot glue anyone ? )you end up with a better plane in the end. I also think they fly better, but it could be my pride showing :-)

99% of safer is between the ears, not in the plane.

HoundDog

My Feedback: (49)

Matt U give your fellow R/C's a lot more credit than most deserve. look at something that most any of your club members have repaired and attempt to fly ... I'll be ya they are the guys that are crashing all the time. I can build a 30 foot long Blank die a 6000 Lb deep draw Die. I can build any progressive die Designed and built many in my career but when it comes to wood and glue ... OH I leave it to your imagination. No excuses but my first RC plane was a Trainer sixty and when a friend of mine sold it it weighed an extra 3 lbs from all the reinforcing and Epoxy. Give me a bridge port and a surface grinder and a band saw and I can build anything metal but wood and glue HATE me.

joebahl

My Feedback: (2)

These kinds of posts start the ARF VS kit and scratch built planes drama . As far as building a ARF ,NO you put it together, but the builder who desighned it then built a prototype and test flew it plus made a few bucks was the true builder . joe

Leroy Gardner

Could it be that this type of thread is just what a prospective builder needs to give a go at building. Aside from learning some new things which isn't that big a deal, meaning it's not hard to do and spending some often rewarding time making something that can be a lot of fun, well what have you got to lose. Actually an RTF (ready to fly) or an ARF (almost ready to fly) might be the way to start out just to see if you enjoy it. There are a lot of park fliers that for as little as $100 and some charge time is ready to go after putting the wings on, you don't need a club or AMA to fly them just a field or park.

By the way, this is not just a guy thing, you girls might like it as well. Go for it, you'll like it.

Leroy

joebahl

My Feedback: (2)

I built with balsa all my life but 2 years ago started to learn how to build with cheap Dollar tree foam and Dow fanfold i get free off of construction jobs i run. So for as little as 4 bucks plus cheap motor,servos and reciever you can build a rc plane or trainer to fly. I built 3 of these for the grandkids to learn on and they fly slow and lots of fun for them . joe

mattnew

My Feedback: (2)

I'd bet those metal skills didn't come on your first project though... glue and wood you can learn if you want, asking questions here is a great way to get help and learn a new skill!


the people that consistently crash at my club all have 1 thing in common. They all would rather crash their ARF warbird than have a successful flight on a trainer. and their skill level is at the point where they should be flying that trainer. I think that comes hand in hand with the ARF mentality.

I probably shouldn't talk.. I crashed 3 planes last year...might be time for me to practice on a trainer too....

acdii

+1

SIG makes some good ARF. Their 70 T-Clips is a good example. Well built, though glue joints are of the quick variety, and it is always a good idea to reglue those you can reach. I have several hours on mine, with a few mishaps, only damage was a cartwheel on takeoff, broke some wood, but the glue joints held. OTOH I did have an early 4*120 ARF that had a poor structure design of the joiner box. After several flights the spars separated at the fuse and I lost the plane. Had the box sides gone up the sides of the spars, the wing would not have come apart like it did. No glue in the world would have prevented that.

Gray Beard

My Feedback: (-1)

At about the time the ARF was getting popular the ARC {cover} was also available but for some reason didn't take off as well as the complete ARF planes? I assembled one for a customer and thought it was a great idea. You could check and repair any loose parts, make mods and see how the plane was constructed. The only thing really required of the owner was to be able to cover. The savings were also very good.
I agree,a lot of building space isn't required to build a kit. I built one in my cadre room while in the Army on my desk. Before that when I was a teen I used to build over a pine board on top of a coffee table in my folks living room while watching TV. Sanding and the use of the dope were done outside on the porch. When I got married I built on the table in the living room and on the floor.
Kids go to bed early or they should, so I had a couple hours a night to build and I just made sure everything was put away before I went to bed. KIds should be taught early to look with there eyes and not there hands at an early age anyway. My grand kids were and they are always invited into my shop to see what kinds of new things are being created.

HoundDog

My Feedback: (49)

We've got a guy we call Dollar Bill, he has way too much money and knows every thing there is to know about everything ... Last summer I watched him Kill 3 $800 Lectric ARF's on Saturday didn't even make it off the runway. Sunday he Killed 2 more, Ya know what his first comment was OH Hell I bought 3 of each of them.
OH the Dummy also cut off his right index finger with a large LECTRIC ARF 100+" Taylor Craft. Then he knew better than the doctors and took it out of the cast early. Now it looks like a fish hook and is completely useless He can't even pick his nose with it. I guess it takes all Kinds to run a world.

joebahl

My Feedback: (2)

Back when i started in this hobby there were a few well off gents in my old rc club that thought nothing about crashing 3 or4 basla built planes a day because they had built or had some one else build 2 0r 3 of the same plane for them. Most times the rest of us watching this would do so hiding under the picnic tables at the field so we were safe from them. joe

Stikum

Heck, Joe, when I started flying R/C we were using AM radios on 27mHz. Some trucker with a linear amp on his CB 50 miles away would shoot you down....

Anyone remember the Cox foamie Cessna Centurion? Two channels, two sticks? A local doctor had a son very late in life, and he bought that spoiled brat one of them. They brought it out, fueled it up, and launched it - without the rx on. $200 in 1973 dollars flew away and landed half a mile out in a farmers field. The kid refused to even go look for it.

MTK

Hear here!! Good point re: don't want to build. People who want to build find the time. Example, even with arthritis in my fingers, when my 10 year old grandson asks me to design and build an F18 look alike for rubber power, guess what....I drew it and it's on my building board.

In regard to ARFies, some have come a long way. I really like the stuff Extreme Flight puts out. The Extra I assembled from their components was quite strong, very light (several pounds lighter than other stuff of similar size) for its size and was straight. I know a couple of the people associated with that endeavor. A great deal of design work took place not just on the models but the fixtures used in the builds at the factory in China. Then there is the continuous training Chris Hinson and team do to the workers to make sure the products continue to meet EF standards and modeler standards. Can't vouch for anyone else's ARFs since I don't as a rule do ARF's, but EF products are a notch above. FWIW

Stikum

The original Quickee 500 pylon racer was designed by Glen Spickler as a club racer for the first club I joined. One of the members designed and built a set of jigs so that he could frame up Quickee kits and let them dry (Titebond glue) overnight. He supplemented his disability check that way. He was also the first local adopter of CA glue (Hot Stuff brand) so that he could really crank them out.

I believe most of the balsa ARFs today are built on jig fixtures. It's pretty rare to get a warped wing because of that. Not so with first-time kit builders...

joebahl

My Feedback: (2)

I keep hearimg the price of a scratch built plane is cheaper than a ARF . If you buy balsa and glue in bulk use free plans and have collected enough parts over 40 or so years you can build your own plane fairly cheap . Stikum our club swung a deal for buying Quickie 500 and i think is was 23 bucks per kit . I had a HP 40 racing motor in mine and it was very fun to fly and compete with also, joe

Stikum

We brought them back about 20 years ago as a club racer, using OS FP40 motors and APC 9x6 props, 10% fuel. The local hobby shop sold a kit/motor combo for $79, and we got several guys started racing. Used the old three-pylon course, stood in the middle. Very old school. The planes were very even (just about any mod to a FP 40 made it slower) and so it came down to who could fly the course the best. Tons of fun, but then some guys wanted to race faster planes and voted to change the rules - and we never had another race.

Stikum

A decade before I started, many guys assembled their own radios - Heathkit. Kraft was the top dog when I started, and the K&B .40 and Veco .61 were great engines. Zenoah was the only major gasser, unless you converted a chainsaw engine. Ducted fans were new, and turbines were a distant dream.

My club hosted the largest F1 race in the world every year.

Times and technology change. Radios are light years ahead of, and much cheaper than, what we had back then. Electric models have become performers. Giant scale is very popular.

In many hobbies, there are groups of enthusiasts who enjoy non-mainstream aspects of their hobby. Sail boaters, Civil War re-enactors, rodeo enthusiasts, swordsmen, jousters, black powder shooters, pumpkin chuckers, vintage drag racers, and collectors of anything and everything.....

Not a thing wrong with any of them.

Gray Beard

My Feedback: (-1)

Plans or scratch building can save a pile of money but it depends on the plane and size. The bigger the plane the more money saved. MY 80 inch Sukhoi cost me under 100 bucks, I built two of the Swoose float planes and they fell into the free planes category because the wood was left over from the the Sukhoi. The Prime Cut was also just under 100 bucks. I buy 4X4X36 inch blocks and cut my own wood to size as needed. The little Up-roar is also a free plane from left over wood. The wood was left over from the Prime Cut. Not too bad, three free planes and two bigger planes for under 100 bucks a piece.
When I buy wood from someplace like National Balsa I buy about twice what I will need so I always have wood on hand. The first Sukhoi I built I bought my wood from National and it was under 100 bucks. I glassed the Sukhoi and got the glass from a boat builder for a few dollars and use Deft Sanding Lacquer Sealer to lay it on with so it's really cheap. You can't get these planes as an ARF and if you could they would be a bit more then $100.00.
The Up-Roar is often on sale from Tower for about $40.00 but I had the plans and templates so why buy a kit.
Buying wood and glues in bulk comes out a lot cheaper in the end if your going to build a lot of planes and sometimes I tend to go into a building frenzy. I get my CG glue for about $20.00 for an 8 ounce bottle.
I'm sure Bob gets his supplies even cheaper when he buys in bulk.
Builders tend to have a lot of stuff on hand. I cut my own wood and bend all my own wire. When someone crashes a plane I look to see what I can use from the rubble, a canopy can really run up the bill. The glass cowl on the prime cut was a free item, it's from a Horizon Sukhoi ARF and the LG is from a crashed 4*120.
I now get my covering from Hobby King, $13.00 for a 15 foot roll.
I build from plans and wait until Ariage is having a sale. I usually post the sale here on RCU for other builders. I just got the plans to a boat I want to build from a free site.
If you want to build scratch or plans you have to think ahead and do a lot of searching but it is really cheap if done right.

TheCalgarian

Looking great! Which kit is that? What power will it have? Good luck and keep up the good work.