saucerguy

I know, it's been so done before, but this one is special. My uncle who is dying from cancer and is on his very last days, gave it to me last year, he picked it up in a garage sale, the owner who had absolutely no build skills, started on the wing and mangled his way part of the way and gave up. I tore apart what he started, luckily he was using epoxy so a heat gun softened the glue up nicely allowing me to start over. I had to replace several of the ribs since some were missing and others were so bad, they couldn't be repaired. I used the supplied extra sheet of 3/32 that was in the kit for the extra ribs for the most part, so not consistent, it worked just fine.

I'm contemplating just having the ailerons on the trailing edge of the wing, and having the servo's, pushing them directly from the side of the fuse, eliminating having to string wires through it, while giving it a little larger chord. I am going to try to make this light so I can fly it around smaller areas. Also on that tangent, I gave this one the stock dihedral, so not going to be flying it on windy days. The plans call for increased dihedral for rc use, but the free flight one is plenty adequate. I lost the canopy for it, so may order another one or just fabricate one here, will decide once I get to that point. This plane is to commemorate my uncle, his name is bob, so am going to call it the Bp51. The wingspan is 27 3/4", which is just fine for the RC element.

EscapeFlyer

My Feedback: (1)

SWEET! [sm=thumbup.gif]

Brian

saucerguy

Not sure if you are saying sweet Brian, to me, because that's my name, Brian, or just saying, that's your name, lol.

I do love the simplicity of kit building, yes, even the Guillows kits, especially since it's one of the larger ones is by far so much easier to do then the scratch creations. So progress has been rather quick.

I'm using high temp hot glue to assist in assembly, I say assist as in it's used to hold things down while the PVA, "carpenters glue" is drying, I can glob it on if need be for stubborn pieces and pull it away by heating it back up with a heat gun, and this is the first balsa kit build I opted to use the technique with, needless to say, am totally loving it since it gives me that quick set up element reducing needing the volume of pins needed, and with the case of the fuse formers especially, holds them upright perfectly. I'll leave the beads in place on the fuse for extra reinforcement.

With the wing assembly, I tried something new along the end stringers on one end, I left them overhanging, let it all dry over night and put some hot glue on top of the stringers, it allowed me to bend them down without breaking them so it reaches the wingtips as one piece, the other side, well, that's the last time I use the old way of doing it and the buggers fell out of place while moving it, just noticed after the photo, will recommend just using solid stock for the die hards.

With the landing gear spar, or what ever you call it, I used the stock vinyl supplied within it, and instead of using it for the landing gear to mount to, it stands to reinforce the wing structure and I gorilla glued it in place to really make it become a bonus to the structure itself. From other builds I saw, they always waffled under flight and tore up the wing so am going to glue in some basswood flat stock underneath the wing and mount the landing gear flat onto it "if I choose to use landing gear at all, after all it's going to be the backyard flyer so no real runway", but will do the basswood regardless just so I have that option in the future regardless.

Those new to these type of kits, ie. die cut, or in another term laughinly, die crushed, make sure your blades are sharp, if they start tearing away at the balsa, time to replace the blade. Also, do not try to pull the piece with the stringer cuts in tact, cut over them so you have one basic shape to pull out, then go back over and cut and pull the stringer sections afterwards. The cross grain is going to be the weak spots, so you may have to cut around the piece itself oversized, then cut away to remove the excess, these aren't perfectly cut lazer kits, so a little babying to get them to liberated from the stock is very much needed. If in the event you break off a corner, etc. keep some CA on hand so you can glue it back in place before removing the piece.

scale only 4 me

My Feedback: (158)

I've built 2 Guillow's for R/C, a Zero and a P-47, this was nearly 20 years ago. I had a Hellcat kit sitting around for years, but I must have sold it

Both used 2 mini servos-2 Channel control with Aileron and Elevator, the Zero had an .049, the 47 a .09 tee dee.
I used home made torque rods for the scale size/location ailerons, not strip ailreons as you maybe thinking of
both were covered with the supplied tissue and dope

I thought about doing the Mustang, but it's relatively small fuse size presented a huge challenge back then with the bulky Rx gear of the day

good luck

Gray Beard

My Feedback: (-1)

There are a number of people at the wattflyer forum that use the guillows and old rubber band kits for RC flight. A very fun kit to convert.

saucerguy

More progress is shown, I added some extra stringer stock to aid along lining up the other side of the fuse formers, it's a good way to go, especially since I used high temp hot glue to hold them in place while the PVA dries. I'll be doing surgery on this for the rc gear prior to adding the stringers and front end sheeting.

I've converted a Stuka as well as a SE 5, to rc, I wasn't ready for warbirds on the Stuka so it got an early grave, still have the plans so will be building another later on, I love flying warbirds, they look so cool in the air, the biplane flew very well, unfortunately it had an early grave due to an oversized b/l motor fell in it, crushing it.

saucerguy

Went through all of the online build of this bird, nothing showed up along how to set up and place the battery pack or any other gear...well, we cannot have that here folks, this is where you find that info, lol. I pulled out my short 3 cell, it's wider then the average 2 cell, but not the full blow mainstream "banana size" 3 cell systems we have, it fit quite well just in the front of the fuse, in front of the wing, as I did the same pack with the SE, it should be a perfect spot with going two cell "I may need to add a tad bit of weight on the tail, like a gram or two if I did keep this little pack in place, still wanting to keep it lightest though, so one or two cell is going to be my preference". It took some surgery to do it, using up the last of the extra 3/32" stock in the kit, I was able to pull it off, place it right within the stringer area on the fuse former on the leading edge of the wing, and bull nose it to the what is currently the first fuse former. You will be cutting in further outside of the stringer slots on the front edge, but you won't need any of that since you are going to replace all of that with a flat piece of basswood. balsa is not going to do with this since I'm going to mount the pack to the hatch itself, may change my mind later and stuff some foam into the area to seat the pack later, who knows, but this should keep you guys glued to your seat to come back to see how I did it finally, lol.

Added some hardwood stock tabs to the side of it to give the hatch some material to sink into via micro screws once I get to that area.

Keep in mind folks, I'm adding high temp hot glue to hold some of these pieces in place will be hitting it with a heat gun after the PVA fully sets up, pulling out the bulk and smoothing over what is left, this plane is not at all going anywhere when it's done and it should not have any additional noticeable weight in the process, yet this direction should give it some BOUNCE instead of break in hard landings.

Next, servo mount sections and receiver gear mounting system will be figured out and entailed with this build log hopefully.

scale only 4 me

My Feedback: (158)

Do you plan to run a Rudder servo, or just 3 channels?
Mounting the Elevator servo in the tail could help a lot with balance

A lot of guys are using small rare earth magnets for hatches vs. screws,, it's a great option

I wouldn't say I'm pinned to my seat, but I love to see unique and creative building,, good luck

saucerguy

You try to avoid adding weight into the aft section of any plane by default, doing so only as a last resort after it's assembled. A tiny fraction of weight in the aft makes a huge difference to affect the COG, so will cross that bridge when I get to it. It's going to be elevator/aileron control.

My uncle passed away early this morning, so please keep him in your prayers.

saucerguy

Got up this morning, hit the shop, bottle of glue was on it's side, all over the place, rather then clean it up, toss it and refill the bottle, opted to lap up what's rest from the build table and use it before it dries, it's seen far worse spills in the past, and feel it's uncle Bob prompting me on to get this one done, God rest his soul....thank you all for so much sympathy on this element guys, really touches my heart with the outpouring of support....

I opted to sink the aft section for the rear servo, using some light 8g ones from Multiplex, they have never let me down and the leading wire from them from the front part of the fuse would have been nearly equal in weight from my calculations to have it placed forward, so decided it's the better way to go, also makes maintenance and install much easier. I am revising what I saw on the only other Guillows thread that showed the set up for their ailerons, they placed theirs off center, mine is not, just needed further reinforcing stock to the top of the center rib, and I could have placed it in sideways for ease of install, I chose not to, so there will not be a one up on me with how it's done in this area done this way, next generation will have to think harder and put in the usual torque rods to handle that one. For this ap, I love the simplicity of it all and to show the other guy did not at all have it wrong, just wanted to show his idea fine tuned. So, this is how it's done if you simply want to mount the servo on the bottom of the wing to handle the ailerons. Still have the side support pieces to put into place, but you can see by the photo's what to do now.

The battery pack area and the receiver area platform are now also in place, the esc is going to slide into the empty areas which have plenty of room. Also going to make the intake/scoop area functional, we need to have air drawn into the plane to cool it off somehow, and will open up the exaust sections for a place for it to circulate through to. It's not totally the best way to do it, the cowl is going to also drag in some air as well, but it's an electric with lipo and brush less, the more air you can get over the gear the better, you never want to stuff it all into an area that has no ventilation.

Anyway, this is coming along, remembering my dear uncle in the process of this build now more then ever, and it's officially the B-51 mustang.

Along my rating of this kit for the Guillows standards, it gets a D for this caliber and scale, a C+ overall, have built much nicer kits they have produced before, this has many rough edges and is not at all what I would recommend for the first time kit builder of their lines to start up with. This particular one is nearing the end of so far, their die's needing either replacement or retooling, so many of the pieces to a lot of work to figure out where they intended to cut from the sheet and barely scratched it, or botched pieces "die crushed" so it did take more work to get this far compared to their nicer kits, such as the lazer cut se5. Everything I'm doing to make this into an RC version has zero documentation from their kit, so it's all what I came up with from scratch, reference this thread not their plans for the conversion guys, I'm documenting it for this purpose rather then just bragging rights.

Also, nothing they have ever produced at all comes close to the tolerances I do with my scratch balsa builds regardless, but I suppose when you work in such high volume, you don't need to worry about it, then again, I surely would love to see Comet come back to keep them on their toes again....perhaps I will some day myself with my own lines, then again, perhaps I might resurrect Comet itself....

saucerguy

Have been rather side tracked, but making steady progress on this bird. I'm showing some shots of the wing section prior to the upper sheeting to show how and where I'm placing the center servo area. Also, used some clear packing tape to prop up the components for photo purposes on the air frame.

Sanding this down was kind of tricky, in some areas I had to pull away the hot glue with the heated tip of the glue gun, then pull the material off while it's still molten, not an easy task, but if you go this route, don't pannick if you start out with globs everywhere, they all can be pulled away and what's left smoothed over. Don't be overzealous on initial sanding, hot glue doesn't sand at all like balsa, so it's an alternative process of doing it. Needless to say, the end result became an airframe and wing section that not only is stiff, it's springy when stress testing it, not spongy like EPP at all, and not springy as in the pieces giving how it gives prior to covering using only hard glues, it's a far stronger way of working with this type of kit. Admittingly it's heavier going this route, but within acceptable levels. I really want this bird to be around for a while, and this should help insure it. I have the plans to it, and hindsight now, would be to toss the stock balsa and cut out the pieces from scratch, "carbon paper below the plans makes that element a snap", and cutting the stringer cut's to true tolerances, the original die cut pieces, far too wide for most of them, so had to fill in a lot in this area. I will likely not use the vinal firewall, it's not very strong, but may change my mind, it's a critical piece and it doesn't like cold weather due to the composites, and you don't want that in the pc. nw, especially how our weather patterns have been, ie. it's the middle of June and I'm freezing my tail off here, lol.

I still have to figure out how I'm going to mount the wing to the fuse, I would like it to be removable, preferably rubber band style, that way a rough landing will give it some give in this area rather then just bolted on. It's seating very, very tightly, so may be cutting away the saddle area more as well as slim down the section where the wing mounts as well. It's in fine tuning stage at this point prior to covering, and the latter, I have to decide what I want to do with it. I can use the supplied tissue paper, it's the good stuff, and I'm good at using it, might use Solite instead for ease of use, or might go hard core and try silk for the first time.

One thing you'll notice on the rough wing, there are a few spill over's of gorilla glue, I used this on the sections that will fail first, ie. the leading edges that meet bull nosed to each other, leaving the excess in place on the interior level purposely.

Forward sheeting is not necessary, the battery pack area and gear plate gives it plenty of interior strength and I just love seeing the stringers and edges of the formers show up in the finished models with these types.

The tail fin, I initially created it in solid stock, per the kit recommendations, the grain going all one way proved to make it very prone to warping, so tossed it and went back to the kit contents for the stick version of it, which proved to be more rigid, also makes it lighter. Getting it to seat to the plane correctly required some surgery along it's front, lower edge. With the stab, make sure the stringers do not extend unbroken to the tail of the plane, or it will not seat at the proper incidence, cut them off and mount them level with the center fuse "spar?", you'll see what I mean if you do the kit. The incidence is set very tightly, give it a degree more if you want to play it safe, either by adjusting the plans, or shim it up. I left it stock at zero just because I wanted to keep it more true in flight without the training wheels. (I tend not to use wash on the wings of my birds as well just fyi). Take note along the ailerons, with wash it wouldn't be possible to go this route.

So far, have more covered in this build log then any other guillows p51 kit conversion, I want this thread to be the place to go for those doing these that need the details omitted from all of the others. Wish I could get them to send me another canopy for my efforts, lost the original, lol, so looks like I have to order another one, have never gotten a decent piece to vacuum form, so am not even going to attempt to create one from scratch, then again, might bash one out of foam if I get desperate, lol. So so wish my local hobby shop had the selection of airplane build parts and stuff as the ones up north, sigh...otherwise would just snag a sig one off the shelf.

Dzlstunter

Have you considered building in a socket for plug-in gear. That way you will have an option down the line to use the gear over a paved surface and not over turf. Just a thought.

saucerguy

I was just going to bolt the landing gear underneath the wing, that's why I have those two pieces of ply underneath, in place for. The other ones I saw from the build log, as well as what I experienced with the stuka, stock, tore the lower section of the wing apart, so this should eliminate that problem. Plug in, might be a good option as well, let me think about it for a bit, thanks for the idea.

saucerguy

I've been juggling twelve things at once, so this is a build log that's taking more time then usual, then again, it has special meaning behind it and remaining in detail on this one, as the place to go to for this particular kit conversion to boot, adds to the legacy of their kits, my skills and my uncle who is following along from the world beyond.

I used paintstick stock for the forward firewall, you can get it "free" at most home improvement stores, Home Depot is in this case, it's good material to work with and can't beat the price, just make sure you guys leave the store with something you pay for or they may have a problem with a massive amount of rc guys just showing up to grab a stick or two. lol.

I sheeted the nose of this bird with it then carved out sections for the motor wire leads to exit, it's backing area for the shaft to have clearance and an area to help take in air to cool the battery pack. The motor I'm using is a Tower Pro cheapie that is around 900 kv, it's seen alot of field combat/abuse and remains rock solid, it's also very light, and since this airframe is also the same, I'm hoping this becomes it's permanent home, it didn't require any shimming to fit into place with the cowl, which also leads me to believe, it's meant for this plane. The cowl is tighter then I wanted stock considering it will have covering, so spent a decent amount of time sanding the nose section to suite it.

The scoop, well, before you cement it's former into place, pull the piece of plastic stock out and line it up to it before mounting, I did some major surgery to it to get it to fit over it, not even remotely close to the plans and not at all hard to shimmy down to it's proper size when it comes to mounting it, as long as you do so before mounting the thing. This is a major element of detail that just severely lacked from the plans to the finished product, so glad I didn't cover it yet. You can see, we have air intake on the scoop, plan upon this element prior to mounting the formers, it was tough to carve in the air duct system after it was assembled, but since I'm using b/l and lipo which were not even invented at the time the kit was put into production in the first place, this is a must do for you guys doing the same. I need to put into place on this bird exit vents in the aft section regardless, so will be revising the fuse with one more mod in this area.

Looked around a lot for the canopy, it along with several other rc gear parts are just awol, I am going to cross that bridge when I get to it, so hate to break down and re-order a new one, and it's not going to stop the maiden, it will fly just fine without it and I can fabricate something if I just refuse to bother with that element regardless and get the stock one later to put into place. I've moved several times since I got that kit, so it's par for the course, lost some things "a lot of things" in the process. I may end up using the 3 cell, but it will be flying hot and nose heavy if I do, next week will determin my budget in this area, I really want this to be done right and not have to white knuckle this bird in the air, a lighter pack will be far easier for the weight to airframe factor, but a heavier one, so, so much more fun, lol.

Covering, I may end up using the silkspan supplied and paint the thing, it's a budget element as well as I really like to build and model the planes, this one in particular, tomorrow I'll make a decision. LHS only has monocoat, which just is not going to do here at all, so wished we had a good one locally, so am stuck with dealing with remnents when I frequent it and I'm sorry guys, RTF's and ARF's along with Midwest balsa and ply do NOT give me a whole lot of incentive to buy from you store, lol.

saucerguy

duplicate

saucerguy

I'll have photo's shown on the next post. I decided to use the included silkspan and am using Elmers Carpenter glue for securing it down, will share a tidbit along how I do it for those that use the stuff and don't want to follow the traditional manner, mine is a little more messy on the fingertips, but it's the easiest way to use the stuff. Silkspan is NOT tissue paper, it may appear that way folded up, but when you look at it under the light, it's actually pretty thick material that has some structure to it. It will also stretch if treated properly and I'm taking advantage of this element with how I apply it.

You don't need to use relief cuts with it, with how I use it, as opposed to plastic coverings which require a lot of pulling and heating to get around those "most people don't have the skill to do that well", as well as if you do, it will put a decent amount of strain on the complex curves if not done perfectly. Regular tissue doesn't stretch at all for all intensive purposes, so the relief cuts are mandatory going around complex curves. I use full strength glue along the edges, the primary points initially for it to adhere to, then with one hand, dipping my finger into the glue, the other to hold the material tight, I apply it to the outside of it, working my way down the piece. Using a longer duration glue, such as carpenters, it's not a job that gets done in one evening, yet it allows you to work out any wrinkles in the process. Around the edges, since the silkspan now saturated in water based glue on it's contact areas, it will stretch perfectly, just don't push it too far, there is no need for relief cuts, mentioned already, and there also is no need to apply excessive pressure. You'll be babysitting the pieces for an hour or so, seeing if anything loosened up or any wrinkles reveal themselves, yet since the glue and material is still maluable, you can ease all of those out. Make sure that if the material is tacky, you put a little glue on your fingertip as you move along the surfaces, while keeping the hand holding it dry and glue free, otherwise you end up with a mess.

This really isn't bad material to work with at all, it just takes a little more tlc to apply it, and as I'm doing it here, you don't need to put up with the stench of airplane dope, I'll be clear coating it with minwax to seal it all up, "oil based of course", and can apply what ever paint scheme I want to for it afterwards with what ever I choose to use, not even going to bother with the hobby shop selections in this area, once the minwax is applied, I have a broad range of paints to choose from. It's RC, not free flight, otherwise, if you go the latter, forget what I told you and get solite or try my packing tape on the cheap if you are in a hurry, you'll want light as you can get it in that area and painting and coating a free flight plane is never the way to go, lol.

SFflyer

Brian, I came over and decided to take a look at your thread. I always enjoy seeing what your creative mind has come up with, so this is a good opportunity! I have read a number of posts on Guillows conversions to electric and only a select few (that means you as well) have been able to get these Guillows models to fly. A lot of them seem- how shall I put it?- "tempermental". LOL. If anyone can tame an unruly Guillows P-51 Mustang, it is you. Beautiful job on the build. I think you have a good motor in there and it will be neat to see how it does when the time comes to launch it.

Bob

saucerguy

Thanks for the positive input here Bob, I found these kits, even free flight need a decent amount of retooling to make fly correctly, they are more true to scale then anything else, and make great display models. You can dial them all in to peroform correctly, it just takes some minor revisions to do so. Most people just read the label, follow in the instructions and wonder why it doesn't go as planned, they are a combo of kit assisted old timers plans, so you gotta fill in the gaps as needed. I talked to the VP of Guillows a while ago, the last thing he was interested was in change of any kind, and it was awesome to be able to speak to the guy over the phone, it's clear, they never will change what they have to offer any time soon.

It's good to hold tradition like this, the very last of the old timer style kit systems, it's bad, wish they would at least be opened up to more possibilities, but alas, we gotta respect their values and what's in place. "Again wanting to mention Comet as needing to be resurrected"... I'm actually starting up my own line of stick kits and arf's, have the url in place and a game plan, and perhaps, I should be adding onto it to include these types of birds down the road, free flight ready for conversion, for now though, sticking with larger scale, full blown RC in that venue.

Progress on the silkspan is very slow, I'm piecing it together and letting each piece fully dry, trimming off, and securing the edges prior to adding the next ones, so don't have enough to justify photo's, the plastic covering's, it's a simple evening to do, yet, again back to the fact, my dear Uncle gave me the kit, I'm going to use every tidbit that's in it and this means going hard core, old school on the covering element.

scale only 4 me

My Feedback: (158)

It is cool that Guillows is still making these kits the old school way.
This came with Silk? Not Tissue?

I'm very curious to know what kits you plan to produce

saucerguy

Hi Scale, I'm going to focus on warbirds, seems appropriate considering it's a field that we as manufacturers need to go to war upon to take back. I'll be hiring assemblers across the nation as well for converting these to ARF's and get them on consignment at their local hobby shops. My main industry got so sporadic, I'm forced to place future investments into new divisions, the aircraft being on of them.

Silkspan is not silk, it's more like a heavy duty tissue paper that has built in thick graining properties allowing it to stretch and is a lot more durable and less temperamental then tissue paper. if you get it wet, it can handle some complex curves as well. I'm using PVA to adhere it down, so can't use the wet technique, that, and they give you just enough in the kit to complete the job, so am not going to experiment. It's going down smoothly, barely any wrinkles at all, so when I treat it afterwards, it's going to have a flawless finish. As you can see, the PVA I'm using does have a slight tint to it, the plane will be painted, which will cover that over, but it gives on a clear indication to insure all of the pieces are fully secure. The kit has you piece together the covering in more sections then how I'm doing it, still, I'm not pushing the boundaries upon this area, typically with plastic coverings, I'll get it down to only 3-4 pieces max for the whole fuse, so am being rather conservative still.

Also, a little tidbit I noticed, when I did the other build logs like these, I noticed the LHS managed to run out of that particular kit, ie. hopefully people are being inspired to pick up one of their own to do.

scale only 4 me

My Feedback: (158)

I've built quite a few with both tissue/dope and silkspan/dope,,
I just thought the Guillows kits came with tissue,, it's been a long time though

Looks good

saucerguy

The smaller, cheaper kits do come with plain ol tissue paper, so probably is what you remember of them., I have a roll of dollar store tissue that's multi colored should I go that route, it's the same thickness, and since it's colored, don't need to paint it, thus keeping it lighter in the process.

saucerguy

I finally reached the end of the covering, have only been tinkering with it in my small spare time in the evening, so it's been slow, then again, doing it with pva, probably better to go that route, I have planes to fly if I just need stick time, it's not a build I intended for getting up in the air quickly, and wanted to do it with a little more finesse then the rest considering the nature of where this kit originated from.

So far, we can eliminate a tremendous amount of piece work on the fuse, even didn't need to piece out the wing past 4 pieces, just take your time with it, all I can say. I opted to glue in the wing prior to shrinking and painting, glad I did, it was super tight to begin with, and even though I carved even more out, after the fact, still was tight, and upon mounting it, it did cause some extra wrinkles, it will be good to shrink them up after the fact, rather then live with them with no choice if I would have treated the skin prior to mounting it. It's still tight enough to come out quite well in this area, there should be almost if no wrinkles at all with the finished bird, I'll know after the clear coat is applied, for it's the deciding factor. Another good reason to mount the wing prior, the pva will soak directly into the wood rather then laying on top of the skin, also noticing the curves just leave more gaps, so will be filling those in with gorilla glue prior to adding the covering sections along that seam. I'll paint on top of it once that is applied, since then I'll have it sealed and secured into place for good, the wing will not be removable, but I don't need it to, it's such a small plane, breaking it down further is impractical, also it's adding further strength to the overall structure being locked in.

Using an Irwin quick release clamp to hold the leading edge in place while it drys, this is going to be a tight plane to fly, and will likely need all it can get considering the size to power ratio it's going to be taking.

scale only 4 me

My Feedback: (158)

looking good

saucerguy

Well, keeping this as a cheap build, I opted to use minwax, oil based, satin, that I have plenty on hand to get a protective coat onto the plane. I was pannicked at first, for the silkspan was sagging after it was applied, and it tends to run all over the place, so had to babysit it during the initial drying phase, using a heat gun "very, very lightly and carefully" to help guide it along to the tacky stage. I saw some smoke come out from the center of the fuse, so do this at your own risk, you may end up with a ball of flames if you don't do this right, minwax is highly flammable. It kept tightening up, then relaxing, so I relented at some ungodly hour to call it quits, what ever happens, happens, and was not looking forward to recovering it if it didn't turn out well. This morning, checked in on it and it dried nicely, there were a few wrinkles that managed as a result of this technique, initial covering was nearly flawless, but again, took the heat gun and pulled most of them out with ease.

It looks antique and weathered "minwax tends to give a yellowing tint to things", and I'm loving how the sticks are showing right on through, as a wood worker, I love seeing finished wood and having something to show off like this in the shop is appropriate. I'm going to leave the finish as it is and apply the decals and call it good, so this makes a new color scheme and system to have it stand out from the rest at the field. It's of course a bit heavier then optimum, but also more durable, and if I decide down the road to recover, I can, but I doubt I'll ever want to. So, now time to sand off the bits and pieces on the edges, and some more details to cover, then ready for final assembly.

One more tangent I might follow through upon. I was at the dollar store, someone had a pair of sqirtguns they forgot to ring up, and I was next in line, thinking, surely the person at the register knows these aren't mine,....well, needless to say, I'm stuck with them, lol, and I'm thinking, what on earth can I use these for....well, the trigger mechanisms will make excellent shock absorbers for the landing gear, I might incorporate those into this one, since it's going to come in hot, that little bit of insurance is going to help keep this bird in tact.