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Old 11-03-2010, 09:39 PM
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doxilia
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Default RE: Making Molds of Classic Pattern Plane Fuselages & Parts to Keep them Alive for all of us to Enjoy!

Brian,

that is definitely an interesting way to look at it. Personally, my feeling is that when it comes to classics, if you want to truly feel that you started from zero, then you should really start with the plans and build the entire airframe from wood. However, may of the classics never existed in the forms of plans - at least the plans were not released publicly. One such example would be the Atlanta but there were many others. The only way to build one of these classics would be to have a glass fuse and at least the wing and stab airfoils and planforms. In the absence of that, good luck rendering an Atlanta into flyable form!

With that said, we should all be very grateful to Don and the various modelers who have kindly offered their rare collectible original fuses in order to produce a mold which allows them to be replicated. Likewise on the wing/stab airfoils & planforms. I would mention that until one has built a classic starting from a glass fuse and foam cores, one doesn't realize the extent of work involved in producing a flyable model. Perhaps it's because I am much more used to working with wood (I've built far more wood models than glass/foam models), but I can build a wood model is a fraction of the time it takes to build a glass/foam model. And when i say build, I mean the time to have the model ready to fly. Granted, many glass designs were cast as such because of the complexity of building them from wood. Typical examples of complex wood builds would include the Aurora and Beetle.

I take my hat off to anyone willing and interested in learning the trade of mold making, fuse layup and core cutting - all arts by themselves. Bill, head over to the composite forum and enjoy spending the rest of eternity learning all about molds, layup and such. RCU is an amazing source of information and sharing.

David.