Originally Posted by Regent

Let me throw my hat in the ring as one of the cheapest RC hobbyist around. But first let me say that it is not because I can’t afford the hobby, I just love to restore and recycle still usable material out of crashed models.

As an example:
On all of my crashed models, (as well as what I recover from the trash barrel at the field), I will push out all the blind nuts and dig out all the nylon hinges and soak them in acetone, clean them up and put them back in my spare parts bin. I have boxes full of landing gear, motor mounts, fuel tanks and wheels that have been recycled. If a fuselage is totaled and there is a repairable wing and tail section, I save the repairable parts for future use. If the fuselage is repairable and the wing is toast I will save it and use it later when I mix and match parts to build totally new hybrid planes.

If I decide that a part is too much trouble to repair I will just strip it down and cut out all of the usable wood and save it in my scrap box. All the wood in the scrap box is sorted by thickness so I can easily find some piece that I can use.

Now I do have an inventory of fresh balsa and ply that would equal many hobby shops but I do enjoy gluing up two or three pieces of scrap to get a piece bit enough to use. I also am not above gluing up two pieces to get it to the desired thickness.

Everyone in my club knows that I do this and they also know that if they need something there is always the chance that I have it or have something that can be made to work. If I don’t have anything invested in the part I usually will just give it away or just ask for a small fee to cover any sweat equity.

Trainer planes provide a large part of the inventory because they tend to be short lived and many do not have the time or skills to do any repair. For all new flyers I advise them to spend their money on a good quality engine and computer radio and then come over and we go through the selection of wings, tails and fuselages and make up something that will get them in the air for $10 - $15 plus the cost of any fresh Monokote. (I also have a box where I keep scrap Monokote.) Many repairs and trim pieces also come out of the Monokote box and I have decided on a trim scheme based on what scrap pieces in have in the box.

Cheap? You bet. But I don’t necessarily do it for the money for the most part I do it because it is fun.