I am thinking of purchasing a couple ARF's that I feel might be discontinued some time soon but I want to store them for a few years allowing time for my fleet to dwindle down some. What would be the shelf life on Arfs. I know some people have kits that they have stored for several years with no problems but ARF's are different. Arf's are glued and covered and these items concern me. I would be storing them in my basement and there would be changes in humidity.

Longer than you will be interested in them. I would say 10-15 years would be no problem at all.

I`d say indefinitely if you can find a way to store them in a climate controlled environment and out of harm`s way.

I'm with MOTORMAN37. Same as he, the shelf life of an ARF is probably longer than you would be interested in it, but I wouldn't put a time limit on it. The limiting factor would probably be invironmental conditions that would contribute to oxidation of metal parts in the hardware package or moisture that might cause the wood to form mold or rot, but that could be several (10, 20, 30?) years! Probably, the longer the model sits in the box the more the covering will wrinkle and loosen, but only up to a point. And I would imagine that in most (all?) cases, you should be able to re tighten the covering.

If you plan to store the model for more than a couple of years, you could consider lightly coating the metal parts with WD-40. If possible, I would store it indoors to keep it out of reach of mice or other rodents such as giant, ARF-eating rats! If your storage area is in a basement that may flood, store your model off the floor--an ARF I once had was sitting in about 1/2-inch of water when my basement flooded a couple of years ago. Luckly, all the parts were still in their individual plastic bags so nothing was damaged, except for the box.

If, as you stated, you want to store it for just a couple of years, I wouldn't worry about anything and just store it indoors if you can.

Tim

Of course you never know what was in the kit to begin with.

I received a new H9 PTS P-51 ARF and let it sit for two weeks.

When I went to open it, BEFORE I cut the fuse baggie, I noticed tiny little critters running around inside the bag.

Ooops....

Longer than the flight life usually is!!!............sorry, I just couldn't resist!

Indefinitely, if kept in the house and out of the elements. There are models on EBay that still look like new, 40 years or more after they're made. They were usually kept in a bedroom closet rather than the garage or attic, or they were put on display in the living areas.

NorfolkSouthern

I have several ARF's that have been stored since the mid 1990's. (Actually and literally, under my bed)
I get them out and open them up from time to time for inspection, (when it's time to move the bed and vacuum around under there.)
All are still in "fresh from the hobbyshop" condition.

I bought an old, used, u-control plane at the swap meet part of the IMS show in California in 1983. It was banged around and stored here and there all these years, and it was used and god knows how old when I bought it. Bored one day about a year ago, I cleaned the crusty dust off of it, and took it out and flew it for the first time. No problems, and no degradation of the structure, covering etc.

AV8TOR

Now, now... just because the newbies "attack" them...

Actually, the typical ARF HAS an expiration date. It is usually one or two days after the first flight, but sometimes it coencides with the maiden flight...

This my sound kind of strange. But I have a couple of planes that are ready to cover. I decided to put them away for a long time. put them in a couple of those garment bags you can suck the air out of with a vacume cleaner. Just be carfule that you set them in the bags so as not to crush any surfaces when you draw down the air. This has worked for me for several years and I store them in the garage rafters. I have checked them once a year. I have never had any unwanted wild life in them due to the sealing of the bags. Now if you can get one of those bags big enough ( the ones for full length garments) and the box will fit then just put the whole box in one and don't worry about them till you want to.

[8D]I'm not sure about an ARF, but I had a kit built Kenhi Buzz'rd I brought out of retirement after over thirty years and there were no problems. It even had doped silk covering that I would expect to age worse than the heat-shrink covering of the current ARFs.