CrazyIrishman

I was hoping to get some thoughts on building a "Guillows Stearman". How suitable are they for R/C and is the wood in the kit still of questionable quality?

About three years ago I built a Guillows Sopwith Camel and I had some problems with the wood. As I recall,some of it appeared to be warped and the "die cutting" left something to be desired. Its a shame they don't lazer cut their kits and use premium wood.


Thanks!

encan

I have built their new lazer cut thomas morse as rubber band powered. The lazer cut wood was very nice but the sticks are still bad.

2oldultimates

I have a guillows stearman that i would like to make r/c as well. I didnt like the wood in the kit so i am in the process of making all new parts using the plans. If you are going to make it gas powered, i definately suggest doing this. Also, ditch the kit supplied stringers for some much stronger and truer store bought balsa sticks. I once made a guillows cub into 3 ch r/c, but used only the wood supplied with the kit and had poor results. If this stearman turns out well, I will build the guillows p-38 i have the same way.

Schu

My Feedback: (5)

Crazy,
I have not built a Stearman, but am in the process of building a four channel DR1 from one of the original kits. I will be posting some pictures soon as I am all framed up now and installing the radio equipment now. I am sure the Stearman as very much the same. I believe most of the kits are now lazer cut which should save huge amounts of time. If you can find one lazer cut it would be well worth going that way as the old kits are die crunched and require alot of time to cut each pc. out and try to get the pc's to match each other. You can do it though if you already have a kit- just plan on spending the time. Follow the directions and sand all the sheets down to get rid of the fuze and reduce the weight. Be sure to cut through the parts first before sanding so you can see the cut out areas- hard to see after sanding. Replace the the real bad parts and move on. Some of the sticks are very weakand my need to be replaced, but I noticed after ca'ing that they suck in the ca so they get much sronger- of course this adds to the weight. I have not flown mine yet so I will let you know how that goes and advise from there if you want any that is. Hope this helps some, Dale

CrazyIrishman

Although I don't have the Guillows Stearman yet, I did buy a set of plans from Guillows a few days ago so I could check them out. They arrived today (Saturday).

There are three ideas that I've thought about exploring but am not sure which is the best one.

#1- Using existing plans, have the entire kit re-cut by LAZER and use decent wood.

#2-Try using/building the kit as "cut" by Guillows and hope for the best...

OR

#3- (This came about after talking via email with Bruce the mod in an earlier post at scratch building 3D/CAD forum)

Bruce suggested using these plans and enlarging them to 1/8th scale instead of shrinking 1/5 scale to 1/8th to use with electric motor. Modify wood dimensions as needed. For some reason I have a fixation on building a larger size Stearman besides what Guillows offers, yet smaller than others. I sure am glad that I'm not plagued by some "crazy" ideas to try! WHEW! LOL


2oldultimates,

What are the dimensions for the cylinders that form part of the dummy engine on the Stearman kit? I was going to try and locate some aftermarket dummy engine parts to use in place of what is in the kit .


Schu,

I'm looking forward to seeing your DR1 !


encan,

Do you have any pics of your Thomas-Morse ? What scale is it?




Have a nice weekend guys!!


Marty

E-Challenged

I built the Guillows PT-17 for e-power using a GWS 300C A ratio 3.75:1 and 8-cell Sanyo 720mah NiMh pack. I modified the wings to add dihedral to both, built a saddle for the top wing, changed top wing incidence to near zero. It flew fast, tended to tip stall, got beat up from crashes, hard landings and repairs and is now retired but flyable. Others have had better performance with lighter construction. The design is a little to small for common micro R/C gear. The short nose can be a problem to get it balanced properly. Lipoly cells are probably too light to achieve balance. A steady running .061 and micro R/C gear being a little lighter, might fly better than e-power.

Bengston of Aerodrome RC has a larger PT-17 kit in beta testing.