I've built three kits and scratch built two other planes in the last 18 months. The scratch built gives you a bit more pride in what you are flying. The only issue with scratch building from plans is that you usually end up destroying the plans in the process of transfering the outlines to wood. You can have copies made but you always stand the chance that the orginal will skew a bit going through the copier and you 'work" plans may be off a bit, or even be a slightly different size. Of course, most of the kit cutters warn you that the output will only be as good as the plans, and any issues with the plans will be faithfuly coppied to the wood. If you take an old set of plans that have been hand inked before printing, you will find the line width of the drawings gives you a lot of room to get undersized or oversized parts. I'm not sure how the kit cutters handle that. For my part, I like to take the parts like ribs and formers and make them in a CAD program. I can then size them if needed and when I print them out, I use a very fine line width. I position the parts on a rectangle the size of my balsa and I can then move them around for best use of the wood. I then spray the back of the print with Scotch 77 and stick it to the balsa. Cut it on the band saw and then sand to the fine line. I get as good a cut as a laser cut piece that way. The only issue is with cutouts, but even then, it isn't that big of a problem.

I guess it just boils down to how much work you want to do and what equipment you have to do it. I remember the frustration as a kid trying to cut out parts with a razor blade. Today, if I had to use them to cut parts, I would only buy laser cut kits. Now that I have band saws and disk sanders, and drill presses, the cut issue becomes fun, not frustration.

Don