exeter_acres

My Feedback: (2)

OK, working on a guillows kit...

Really enjoying it...

the pieces are die cut...
some of the sheets are not cut very well cut at all... some are great...

no biggie really..

but my question is this...

other than the painstaking way of carefully cutting the pieces out with the x-acto.... is there an easier way to remove them? special nifty tool?

kinda curious....

Not in a hurry, but my hand gets tired cutting these things out!

Thanks
Exeter

R8893

My Feedback: (20)

One technique I have seen mentioned is to sand the back side of the sheet.

mclina

The last Guillow's kit I did was the $8.95 P-51 Mustang. It was the crappiest balsa and worst die cutting I ever saw. I came very close to pitching the whole mess in the trash many times. I stuck it out, and now it sits on my shelf at work. It's not pretty, but I was glad I stuck with it.

I just used an exacto or razor blade to cut loose the non-cut pieces, and there were a lot of them.

Good luck.

DavidAgar

My Feedback: (108)

Xacto and a number 11 blade is about the only way. Good Luck, Dave

exeter_acres

My Feedback: (2)

Thought so....thanks....

I had never done a Guillows... they are fun...but yep...can be umm... a challenge! [:@] (the kit isn't...just removing the parts!!)

My Uncle gave several to me as they were moving into a home.......

Like to get a couple built to show him.. somewhat soon.. if you know what I mean


Thanks again!

mclina

I bet your uncle will love having a plane or two hanging from his ceiling.

Good luck

Campgems

Another thing you can do with small kits like that is to picku up a Jeweler's saw and some 4/0 or finer blades. They make a very fine cut, with about the same kerf as a laser cut. Being the piece is parttially punched out now, the blade will tend to follow the path of least resistance, the punch marks.

Looking back in time, one of the saws would have been very nice for cutting the old Comet kits. They were not die stamped, but just printed on the balsa. All but impossible for a 12 year old to cut out using a thrown out double edge razor blade.

Don

SPLIT S

I remember when I built a few of those in my younger years that a small square jewelers file came in handy squaring up the notches for the small stringers. Every time I tried to use a knife I would split off a part of the bulkheads. The file made things much easier.

Campgems,

I wish my Mom would have let me use old razors. Not a chance. My first hobby knife was an old steak knife that was about as sharp as a butter knife. You couldn't pop a balloon with that thing.

Dan

Campgems

Dan, looking back, my Mom let me get away with a lot of stuff. I'm not sure she knew I was using the razor blades or not, but other things, she had to know.

The one thing that comes to mind is that I aquired an O&R 60 ignition engine. It turns out our milk man at the time was also a model airplane guy. I was trying to start the engine one day when he made the delivery. I didn't have a coil or cap, but I somehow got a glow plug that fit. He offerec to provide the coil and Cap and a spark Plug and came over a couple day later, actually evening, and we made a test stand and clamped it to the kitchen table. We never got the engine to run, but we sure filled the house with gas and castor smoke. Me and my wife would have killed our kids if they had done someting like that.

I keep an O&R 60 on lmy desk now. It is the second engine I bought when I got back into this hobby in 2005, after a 45 year absence. Some day, I'm going to make an Old Timer and power it with that engine.

Don

Campgems

Dan, looking back, my Mom let me get away with a lot of stuff. I'm not sure she knew I was using the razor blades or not, but other things, she had to know.

The one thing that comes to mind is that I aquired an O&R 60 ignition engine. It turns out our milk man at the time was also a model airplane guy. I was trying to start the engine one day when he made the delivery. I didn't have a coil or cap, but I somehow got a glow plug that fit. He offerec to provide the coil and Cap and a spark Plug and came over a couple day later, actually evening, and we made a test stand and clamped it to the kitchen table. We never got the engine to run, but we sure filled the house with gas and castor smoke. Me and my wife would have killed our kids if they had done someting like that.

I keep an O&R 60 on lmy desk now. It is the second engine I bought when I got back into this hobby in 2005, after a 45 year absence. Some day, I'm going to make an Old Timer and power it with that engine.

Don

w8ye

My Feedback: (16)

The Guillows kits have mostly been out for 50 yrs or more. I would imagine the dies are getting dull by now.

These kits used to be the Cadillac back in the late 50's

Campgems

I do remember the name from back then, but my budget then was a months savings, or a good day picking up bottles from the ditches to buy a Comet 10 cent kit. Another month to get a tube of cement. When you look back at those kits, you realize that they were the foundation that lets you scratch build with confidance now. They were little more than a box of balsa and plans.

Don

w8ye

My Feedback: (16)

Yes the Guillows were a little above my means.

I had to settle for Comet or Monogram

Charlie P.

And Sterling. I had several control-line Sterling kits.

Oh, the good old days.

w8ye

My Feedback: (16)

Sterling came in 1957 for me with a Ring Master and then a Mambo

ChopperMike

And Scientific Models. I built a number of their rubber free flight and control line kits. Those were the days!

Where is our society heading? Back in the 60's when I was a kid we were happy as heck to be able to afford a kit and to have one that we didn't have to cut out all the parts for. Now laser cut parts aren't good enough, we need ARFs that we can have flight ready in a few hours. I'm in the process of building a Sig 1/3 scale Spacewalker which is the first major kit build I've done in several years and it brings back a lot. The ARFs these days are nice but you just don't get as much satisfaction out of them.



Mike

w8ye

My Feedback: (16)

Berkeley was a brand back then noted for crushed die cut sheets

otrcman

"I keep an O&R 60 on my desk now. It is the second engine I bought when I got back into this hobby in 2005, after a 45 year absence. Some day, I'm going to make an Old Timer and power it with that engine. "


Don, Need help getting the O&R running? I'm in Arroyo Grande also and am very active in the local Society of Antique Modelers group. We fly spark ignition engines every Saturday. One of the guys has a test stand with a "clip-on" ignition system that we use for test running engines. Give me a call and I'm sure we can get you going easily. Dick Fischer, (same area code as you) four-eight-nine-four-oh-seven-eight.

ChopperMike

Berkeley. Forgot about them.

Ten years ago os so a coworker gave me a dozen or so old MAN magazines dating from the early to late 60's. It is so neat to look at the articles and especially the advertising from back then. All the models and brands long gone. It definitely takes me back![sm=teeth_smile.gif]



Mike