JoeAverage

Had to finally add my 2-cents here. Been following the thread for quite awhile, agree with 99.5% of what most of the builders here have to say - but this particular exchange is almost like I was talking, not someone else.

You don't know how right you are about building talent that will never be expressed. We've got a guy right here in town that flies RTF's almost exclusively, ARF's when he can't get RTF's. He's a furniture maker, by trade. I finally talked him into trying out a Nosen P-51 that he'd had sitting around since they were new on the market. Took me 4 years of harranging, took him over a year to build it - and it really should be in a museum, the quality is that good. TALENT galore!

He didn't want it - gave it to me. I fly the living begeebers out of it, and it's fabulous.

It's the only plane I've ever flown that I didn't build myself.

Control-line; my first (and greatest) love. My oldest surviving plane is a profile P-82 that was built/kit-bashed from a crashed P-51 and another still in the box. She's been flying since 1971 with the original Fox-35's (sans mufflers) - my greatest pride and joy of them all. Then there are all the Sterling Skylarks that I've got - no 2 quite the same. The last one I built came from e-bay, the seller was so proud that the box was in absolutely new-from-factory condition. She was built and in the air in 3 weeks - flies every chance I get. The ''new-from-factory'' box holds a lot of ''scrap'' wood that I use for repairs to various planes. I won't go into the profile P-63, Cosmic Wind, DeBolt Ercoupe that I built as C/L, or the myriad others that I've got in my stable, other than to say that each and every plane listed above (and quite a few others) was built/silkspan'd/doped and flown by yours truly.

RC my greatest challenge. Have built, flown, repaired, flown some more - so many planes I can hardly remember them all. But I've always considered building to be just the first part of flying. When I built it I know exactly what's under that pretty skin - what makes her work. The guys that do ARF/RTF-types will never know the satisfaction that we know when we take that brand new bird up for the first time - the one we lost sleep and hair over for so many weeks/months. Nor can they understand the 40+ year old plane that we keep in the air because it would break our heart to retire it.

[/quote]

All your remarks are well received. Many passionate builders have replied with one consistency, pretty much a life-long facsination that has kept us building. Many of us have been building for so long that it has become second nature and those things that we learned in our formative years have given us an ability to understand drawings, materials, technique and a sense for aerodynamics we may be hard pressed to express in words. Building has become second nature. It wasn't apparent how much I knew until I tried to help genuinely motivated but totally inexperienced individuals, and in turn this demonstrated the honest ignorance of the novice. We are all born blank of course. The knowledge we have is hard to come by. New magazines for the most part must pander to the advertisers and the buyers of current products. They are ARF catalogs and seldom feature kit or plan built projects af any large effort. There are very few kits compared to the past and plans are so stealable now that few aspire to develop them as was once the case. Little foam things with... who knows. One young fellow, 20 something, I helped via a forum, despite his enthusiasm, had real trouble with what most of us take for granted. If he has to buy an ARF to speed up the flying curve then I understand and hope that he will someday realize and develop that ratio of skill to knowledge that will allow him to do what is as natural as breathing to many of us and will allow him to build his model. It was a Sterling .35 U/C Ringmaster that had him challenged. A long road ahead for him.

I had an uncle that had the greatest models hanging in his basement. Different places my mother took me to visit her friends would reveal flying models hanging from the ceiling. I was model struck. In the 50's and 60's this was a real thinking mans hobby. They were more popular back then per capita. Things were different. The local club had 10 times the members it has today. Men built their own boats too. My father taught me with the last 3 we built together. 100 more and I would have it down pat. Even with simple plywood, transitioning a lap joint to a butt joint as the chine approaches the stem is something that isn't in any boatbuilding book I have read. I use an unusual number of laminations in my aircraft models. I made a 3 inch by 4.5 foot steam trunk for bending pine and spruce. Ammonia works great as well, it softens the lignin in the wood without hurting the strength when dry. Lingnum is often used in place with the term lignin. Lignum vitae is a very dense heavy wood. Lignin is in any wood. It keeps the cells from absorbing water while ensuring water flows through the wood. It is the component in print paper that makes old paper yellow and must be bleached out of the pulp before making paper for non yellowing product. Anyway, it makes sense that if this temporarily disolved the wood becomes very flexible. Boat building has crept into my model making like a machinists lathe and mill will be making brakes and converting weed eaters engines into very serviceable and affordable engines and all those things I wouldn't think of because I know precious little more than High School machine shop. The furniture maker who built the great P-51 demonstartes how transferable and valuable a real skill can be when building anything and certainly models. Again, reading a drawing, understanding that most materials have a grain or zones of hardness or coloration that must be considered. Schools dropping shop are doing a huge injustice. Turning out generations of kids that can't build a flying model. My Mechanics Illustrated "Book for Boys" from 1940 something sums up where things have gone against us. This book (non-yellowing paper) is full of projects that a kid with his dad's help can (could) build then. Not easy or simple but commensurate with what was expected of men in a society where everything wasn't crappy and disposable. Radios, go-carts, canoes, box kites, soap box racers, small boats and models of most anything Remember the things that were all intended to be repaied if they needed it? Appliances, radios, Tv's and dad could do a lot of it. A man had to have a talent in his hands. Too many jobs that required skills are gone. Not just tradesmen but skilled. In times of recession hobbies are the first to go. Free Flight and indoor models are quite affordale and require an enviable amount of skill and knowledge. Little money doesn't have to mean no models.

edited for bad grammar and spelling