RCU Forums - How are ARF's made?

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RE: How are ARF's made?

Truly interesting how all of the ARF's that exist today are compiled and lumped into one category. Wood selection is a key choice for us at Horizon, and we work very hard to ensure that the standards are maintained. There are more companies building models in China than you can imagine, we only use those that have served us and our customers well over the years.

Use of a houshold iron is much faster than a "monokote" iron, they hold the heat much, much better. This of course equals a much faster job on the assembly line. Hot glue as mentioned above is not used in any Horizon Hobby product. Glues of choice mainly for us are alphatic resin glues and some CA. CA is very, very expensive in China and is only used in certain areas.

Interesting how you thnk a video would help educate our customer base. Something to think about on our side.

RE: How are ARF's made?

Quote:

ORIGINAL: John Redman

It is more of an assembly line than you can imagine. Pretty amazing all in all. I have watched the people in China cover a model in minutes compared to our hours as modelers. Just incredible to see. Everything is jig built one way or another. All in all the process is very good and the ARF's of today will rival most modelers attempts at construction.

Oh man that is so not the case. I just recently lost a plane due to a catastrophic wing failure and when looking at the wreckage it was very evident that there was no where near enough glue to hold the wing ribs in place. They were tack glued at best and there was no further glue used after the "tacking in place stage" I can tell you one thing, when I build a kit I do not use glue sparingly and if I am no hurry I used wood glue versus Ca as the final bond is much stronger. ARF's are built on assembly lines for a reason...cheap, fast and by people who could care a less how well they are built. This DOES NOT apply to all ARF assemblers but most of them are cheap fast and careless!

RE: How are ARF's made?

DiabloKid
u may need to say it again:D

RE: How are ARF's made?

To John Redman...I think a video that showed the manufacturing of H9 ARFs should be made, and sent to all your dealers...
Brennan's hobby shop has a TV / video set-up in the center isle where we watch videos quite often, and I know that a lot of us would like to see where ARFs are made...JMO

RE: How are ARF's made?

[link=http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&u=http://www.rc-matrix.com/factory/index.html&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=1&ct=result&pr ev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://www.rc-matrix.com/factory/index.html%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG] RC Matrix translated [/link]

RE: How are ARF's made?

Quote:

quote:

ORIGINAL: John Redman

It is more of an assembly line than you can imagine. Pretty amazing all in all. I have watched the people in China cover a model in minutes compared to our hours as modelers. Just incredible to see. Everything is jig built one way or another. All in all the process is very good and the ARF's of today will rival most modelers attempts at construction.

Oh man that is so not the case. I just recently lost a plane due to a catastrophic wing failure and when looking at the wreckage it was very evident that there was no where near enough glue to hold the wing ribs in place. They were tack glued at best and there was no further glue used after the "tacking in place stage" I can tell you one thing, when I build a kit I do not use glue sparingly and if I am no hurry I used wood glue versus Ca as the final bond is much stronger. ARF's are built on assembly lines for a reason...cheap, fast and by people who could care a less how well they are built. This DOES NOT apply to all ARF assemblers but most of them are cheap fast and careless!

WHOA, let me back the horse up a bit....MY post in response to John's post was by no means a flame or a slam at Horizon Hobbies what so ever. The plane I lost was not a Horizon or an E-flite Product. I beleive and I have experience with this that Horizon Hobbies sells some of the best quality ARF's out there. What I was referring to was John't last line

Quote:

All in all the process is very good and the ARF's of today will rival most modelers attempts at construction.

In my opinion and it is my opinion only, if you compared an ARF out of "some" of the manufacturers in China (not namely those that supply Horizon) and the product built by an above average builder, you would see that the above average builder would win out everytime.

I have enjoyed owning a Hanger 9 Extra 330S until such times as I had a certain brand of servos lock up the elevator due to a center pin boss failure and I will say that ARF was very well built.

John if any of my original post was taken out of context, please accept my apologies, I was not by any means slamming Horizon or it's products, Horizon products and their customer service have always been excellent to me.

RE: How are ARF's made?

We're good, no issues here. The one thing many may not be aware of is the number of vendors that make these aircraft over in China. It is staggering to say the least. Unfortunately not all of them are capapble of building a solid model, as many of you have probably coem to find out (the hard way). Staying with the larger companies out there, I believe you will get the best value for your dollar. I knwo we try very hard to keep it up and we do this because our number one competitor is doing the same.

Still interesting the thoughts on a video of the process. I know I have seen it and it is almost unbelievable with some fo the technology they use to bring these models to market.

RE: How are ARF's made?

Hi,

I came across this site at Jet Hobbies that shows a bunch of pics of several manufacturing sites in China. One of which is CMP Airplane. One link can be found [link=http://www.jet-hobbies.com/jh/index.php?op=public&task=gallery&c=2004_cmp_manufa cturer2&to=24&ti=CMP+Manufacturer+2]HERE[/link] There are more pages in their "Gallery" section on the left side of the homepage.

Pretty amazing to look at, but as can be seen by many of the pictures, it seems the working conditions are very poor. There seem to be many chemicals, paints, solvents, epoxies, etc and the employees seem to have very little or no protective clothing, respirators, and the like.

RE: How are ARF's made?

Your monokoting skills get better quickly when you're doing the job everyday for weeks. Not just once a year.

Jim

RE: How are ARF's made?

Quote:

ORIGINAL: BBOwen

[link=http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&u=http://www.rc-matrix.com/factory/index.html&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=1&ct=result&pr ev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://www.rc-matrix.com/factory/index.html%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG] RC Matrix translated [/link]

Thank you, but how did you do that? Any translating software or does Google have
that capability?

Tsutomu Mabuchi

RE: How are ARF's made?

Quote:

ORIGINAL: Tsutomu Mabuchi

Quote:

Thank you, but how did you do that? Any translating software or does Google have
that capability?

Tsutomu Mabuchi

Wow, I didn't know Google offers such service.
http://translate.google.com/translate_t

Tsutomu Mabuchi

RE: How are ARF's made?

I for one would love to see a video of a Hangar-9 Arf being made. I would especially like to see the covering done. I am realtively new to the hobby with only 3 years flying, and i have only covered 4-5 planes and done some patches on others. I am to the point in the last little while that i am finally happy with the way i am covering but i still learn new tricks every time. The last plane i did was a recovering job on a Nitroplanes super chipmunk and i very carefully measured and cut out templates out of paper before i did the covering. It takes a little longer to get to the actual covering but what a difference. I will def. be doing that on all future models.

Flyboy76

RE: How are ARF's made?

The above post is mine. My friend was logged in on my computer and i forgot to log him out. Please treat the above post as mine

thankyou

flyboy76
Geoff Bedard

RE: How are ARF's made?

Hey John Reman

Are you the same John Redman that lived in New Mexico a long time ago?

RE: How are ARF's made?

Quote:

ORIGINAL: Tsutomu Mabuchi

Quote:

ORIGINAL: Tsutomu Mabuchi

Quote:

Thank you, but how did you do that? Any translating software or does Google have
that capability?

Tsutomu Mabuchi

Wow, I didn't know Google offers such service.
http://translate.google.com/translate_t

Tsutomu Mabuchi

Seems like Google has an answer for everything.

RE: How are ARF's made?

What do you do, put 1500 hours into a kit such as a Carden plus the cost of the kit and covering and hardware or buy an arf such as an Aeroworks Extra 260 or Yak 54? I think the choice is simple for me, as I work so much here I just don't have the time to build.