IF I EVER bought an ARF (and donkeys might fly outta my b**t first) I'd strip it completely, inspect and repair, then recover it.

Dr.1

If they fly nothing but ARF's they will never attain the expert level of building.

Bill, AMA 4720
WACO Brotherhood #1

For the cost of some ARFs what do you expect If you take the ARFs for what they are intended for they are fine. They aren't "high performance" or "scale comp" models. I have had good and bad with ARFs and kits. Some my fault and some not. Many of the kits made overseas have had terrible glue joints because of cheap brittle glue or lack of any glue. All you can do is check everything that's not covered and hope for the best. Kits are great if you have the time. Many of us don't have the time or patience to build kits. I like flying much more than building, so a bad kit here or there is no big deal as long as my components aren't ruined when the plane crashes

I applaud those people building kits and wish I had the time and patience to build them too. Maybe someday when I retire...yeah right!

Last time I checked, you had 24 hours in your day, just as the rest of us. It's what you do of significance with your hours that count. You like to fly more than you would like to be able to build. Fine, do what serves you best. Some of us would rather fly a one-off model than have several cookie-cutter planes that were built by someone else. Me, I would rather build and fly my scale models, than just fly something that some underpaid coolie in a Southeast Asian country built for me. To each his own. I'm just thankful that a few of you younger guys are interested. If you really want to catch the bug in a big way, come to Central Florida the end of April, through the first Sunday in May. Lakeland Linder Airport. You will get to see, "The Event". It's called Top Gun. Not an ARF in the bunch.

Bill, AMA 4720
WACO Brotherhood #1

Me thinks Bill does not work 60 hrs a week or have 3 kids like a lot of us!

Lighten up on him, Bill. Yes, he has 24 hours in a day like all of us do, but sometimes we must do what we NEED to do, not what we WANT to do. I got married 6 years ago, and since then, my building time has gone down somewhat. I'm the stay-at-home partner. I take care of the house and our pets, shop, and cook and a half dozen other things. Some things MUST be done before I build or on a specific schedule. They're not an option. I am NOT complaining. My wife is a wonderful woman and VERY supportive of my hobby. I just wanted to mention that not all of us can wake up, eat breakfast, and build for the rest of the day.

Dr.1

I tried the retirement thing, but folks won't let me stay retired. I got to retire a while back, and one week later, someone wanted me to take over the operation of his company. The offers are so good, that I can't say no to them. No, I'm not doing 60 hours per week any longer (I'm down to about 54), so yes, I have 6 extra hours per week to play. But, when I was doing about 70 hours per week at my job (up until this summer), I still budgeted at least one hour per day to my hobby. You don't build a model airplane in one week, just as you can eat an entire elephant. One bite at a time. That's the way I get to build. One little thing at a time. And sooner or later, the model is finished. I was not trying to come down hard on him, but we all do exactly what we want to do with the time we have available to us. It's all about choices.


Bill, AMA 4720
WACO Brotherhood #1

Your points are valid, Bill. I can't spend 6-8 solid hours in the shop like I used to, but I get in an hour here and an hour there, and sometimes 2-3 in a slow afternoon. It gets done, just takes a little longer. Having my shop in a walk-in attic space helps a lot. It's a 10 second walk from any living area to the building area. I didn't mean it to sound like I was jumping you.

Dr.1

PS For those of you who don't have unlimited building time, keep your shop organized and neat so you can grab any tool or part instantly without spending valuable time looking for it.

Amen, Amen and Amen.

Bill, AMA 4720
WACO Brotherhood #1

It's not just time too. Some of us don't have the space or want to invest in the tools required to build from scratch. If there's a nice ARF I tend to purchase that kit rather than build a kit. I would rather spend my free time on flying than building. I only have a limited amount of time free each week/month to fly so building would eat up that time. My choice is to spend more time flying and less building because that's what I like to do with my free time.

I also prefer to work more, make money and spend it on ARFs. Maybe when I decide to retire or cut back on my work hours I will find more time to build. ARFs have their place for many RC people. Give me more flight time any day!

jmohn,

Not trying to pick a fight here, but this is the kit building forum. That being said, and this is a circular argument, all having been gone over time and time again, but what are you guys going to build when you retire? The kits will probably all be gone, and most of you will have never learned to build, because you won't take advantage of we old farts, who have offered to teach you what It took us a lifetime to learn, plus what was passed along to us. When we kick the bucket, who will you learn from? The Internet? There won't be anyone there who knows any more than do you. Theory won't cut it. My advice (and it's worth exactly what it cost you) is to find an old model building geezer, and pick his brain. You might be surprised at what you can get out of him. If nothing else, we need someone to leave all our neat stuff to....You know.....someone who would use all the tools and equipment, and the planes, engines, radio's etc.

Bill, AMA 4720
WACO Brotherhood #1

I have been building models off and on since I was in my teens and I want to know what tools are yopu talking about. When I started building we maybe had a band saw ,razor blades, sand paper and glue and I built some real nice planes. I built mostly from kits so you don't need a lot of expensive tools and I nevr had a firewall fall off or the landing gear pull or fall out, and I planted many a plane and the gear was still intact. Once you build your first plane and take it to the field and it doesn't look like the rest you will be proud because you are not only a flier but you are now a modeler.

Ron

Shop-clean??? I don't understand? Right now it's hard to find my building board under all the tools and left overs. I have to finish sand the model I'm working on right now then I will clean up and remove all the balsa dust so I can cover the newest creation. Truth is I clean the shop about three times during the build but it is cluttered A lot between cleanings.
I have the time to build 10 hours A day and sometimes I do but lately I have just been going out and working maybe an hour when I'm in the mood then maybe doing nothing for days on end. The job always gets done though.
I can understand younger people not having the time but most of the guys I have built for are retired and know how to build. They want that kit built but don't want to do it themselves so they pay me to do it?? There reason is always the same, they don't have the time?? I don't mind though until they ask me to do repairs on there broken ARFs for them. I don't do repairs, I will assemble there ARFs and set them up for them but that's as far as I will go.
Why someone that is retired needs me to assemble an ARF for them still leaves me baffeled??? Oh well, it's money in my pocket.

Bill,

No problem with your comments. I understand what you are saying and don't like to see more ARFs than kits too. ARFs do get a lot of people started in RC modeling. As people grow and develop, like me, they usually tend to want more scale and unique planes that cannot be found in an ARF. Kits will continue to be around for a long time. My personal preference is a plane with a glass fuz and built-up wings. I don't like building fuzes, but like building wings.

I have a DO 335 kit on my desk right now that I am 50% finished with. It's been there for a long time as I only spend a short time working on it every week. It also requires a lot of fabrication of parts too. It will be a great plane when it's done, but what a lot of work it is!

In regards to the shop, I am not speaking of myself, but other flyers in my club. I have a pretty nice shop to build in and have been building kits for about 25 years. Unfortunately my career and family take priority and my free time is much shorter. I would rather spend time flying ARFs than building. BTW I used to build recurve and longbows from scatch, so I know how to make stuff from scratch

Still, I have no urge to build a car from a kit and would rather get an RTD.

...getting back to glue-joint failures....

Those of us that choose to fly ARF's (I am excluding Stickbuilder here because ARF's are the devils work) should photograph poor workmanship or fixes you came up with and email the information to the distributor so they can fix the problems and improve future product. They obviously need some LOUD feedback on this. Photo's could be from bad workmanship right out of the box or failures occurring during "destructive testing". It also wouldn't hurt to share it with your fellow pilots in a "Fixing the XYZ Arf" thread on RCU.

I think most of the ARFs are made in China or someother cheap labor country so most suppliers here in the U.S. never know of glue problems unless we tell them. I have had glue issues with many ARFs and just make sure I check all the "high stress" areas of the planes. I think photos of the problem would be great. It certainly helps make your point. I had a plane arrive and the whole interior ply for the servos and tank fell right out. Called the supplier and let them know. They have since fixed the problem. I also add epoxy on the key areas of the plane too.


Jeff

CC,

Nowhere in my post did I put down the guys who choose to fly ARF's. I simply stated that I was glad to see some of them expressing an interest in building. Be very careful of what you post in the ARF forum, concerning a poor version of an ARF. Most of the guys who post there consider the ARF distributors to be sacred cows, and will not tolerate anything said of them that could be construed as negative. Seems as if they all expect to have to reglue everything.

Bill, AMA 4720
WACO Brotherhood #1