ORIGINAL: Gray Beard
I live in a Del Webb Community but the shop is our own making. Originally the club put up the money for equipment and got the space from the HOA. This is a huge complex and it is really a small space and they won't give us a bigger area or allow us to expand. We have never asked them for any money, fact is they are like a lot of HOAs and more of a hindrance. We do the club projects that pay for any new equipment, the board has never been asked for help. We do have to ask the board for any building type of upgrade we want to do. So, it's a private club and you pay a whopping $25.00 a year dues and have our {club}rules to follow. Our rules are the most stringent rules in any of the clubs here but for good reason.
I gave up buying kits years ago and I gave up tower even more years ago. They no longer carry much of anything I use or require and Iwas building bigger models then they had products for.
At one point up to about 15 years ago tower had a lot of everything a builder would need, a one stop shop if you will. Then they quit stocking items like canopy's and landing gears and started selling more and more ARFs and less and less kits!
I question the price rise of kits now?? Perhaps they plan on going full ARF like horizon??
I built/cut my own kits for years using just my scroll saw and sander, my wood club is better but I still do a lot of my cutting here at home in my little shop.
Start looking at plans, anyone that is a kit builder can build from plans. As a kid I designed my own planes and used an exacto knife to cut them so I know how easy cutting a kit can be. Why worry about Tower and there prices, who needs them anyway??