How to build a Guillow's wooden plane ?

[erwin]

Hello all,

I bought myself a Guillow's 1/16 Me-109 ,wooden plane.I will get it next week in the mail.

This will be my first ever,so before I start,I would like to get more info on how to build such a plane.

I will put a few questions, to you all who ever build a Guillow's kit, to help me on the way.

* What kind of plastic parts are in the kit,and how correct are they ? (landing gear,clear parts,props,guns,turrets,etc...)

* Normaly the plane should be finished with tissue,but I was thinking of using the finest plastic sheet there is to cover the skeleton.

Any ideas on this,good or bad are welcome.

What kind of glue should I use then to fix the plastic on wood ?

* It's mainly the big scale that got me to buy it,are the other kits in that scale (1/16) worth getting ?

I like the Dauntless,Stuka,Corsair and P-40 the most.

Did anyone build those? Comments please.

I hope to get some answers on this topic soon.

Greetings,

Erwin

[Skyking]

Hi Erwin,

I did one of these many years ago, but if I recall it came out rather nice. I'll answer your questions one at a time, and explain what I did to build it.

What kind of plastic parts are in the kit,and how correct are they ? (landing gear,clear parts,props,guns,turrets,etc...)

All the plastic parts, and I do mean ALL, are vacuformed styrene plastic, in either clear for the canopy, or white for everything else. They fit pretty well considering what they have to be attached to, but they do require some tedious cutting and trimming as you go. Be prepared to spend time removing a little at a time until you get a good fit. One technique ou can do is cover the area of the fuselage with 220 grit sandpaper, in the area the plastic will attach to, and sand the plastic until it conforms to the shape of the wood. Use gap filling CA on the white plastic, and use epoxy on the clear. You can fare in the epoxy onto the clear to make a nice fillet to seal the gaps, and it won't cloud the clear like CA will.

Normaly the plane should be finished with tissue,but I was thinking of using the finest plastic sheet there is to cover the skeleton.

Any ideas on this,good or bad are welcome.

What kind of glue should I use then to fix the plastic on wood ?

I would reccomend .010 plastic for the majority of the sheeting, as it's thin enough to emboss detail on form the backside, yet thick enough tolend some structural strength. In the case of your P-40, the stringers on the back of the fuselage you can emboss on the backside of the "skin" and attach it to the model, and have a nice pleaseing ribbed texture. This can also be done for fabric covered wings. Use .005 plastic in areas that have multiple compound curves, as it bends more readily and is easier to conform. In areas such as fillets, where you just can't get the plastic to curve easily, use a heat gun CAREFULLY to soften the plastic enough to mold it to the shape you want. Again use gap filling CA to attach skins to the wooden framework, and use thin CA to assemble the wood. Place the wooden parts together where you want them, place a tiny drop of CA on the joint and you will get an instant bond. ( plus a little plume of smoke that is fun to watch ) A couple of things that will make assmebly easier. Duplicate some of the structure onto .030 plastic, using ribs, bulkheads, etc, as templates, and bond these plastic doublers to the balsa template and glue into place on the model. This will give you a plastic to plastic joint that you can use regular plastic cement on. You can also use balsa for hard to shape areas. Carve and sand it to the shape you want, then saturate it with the thin CA. It will soak into the balsa and harden it to a plastic like state, that will hide the grain and allow you to sand and shape it like plastic.

These kits do require a fair amount of fiddeling with to get finished, but they can be built into nice replicas with a little time and patience. I would strongly urge you to practice on some scrap balsa and plastic before assembling the model, just to get used to the properties of the CA and how it works with plastic and wood.

Hope this helps Erwin

Cheers

Mike

[erwin]

Hi Mike,

Great info. Because it is my ever first it will be a chalange.

Perhaps I can cut out seperate pannels,like the real thing,from plasticsheet.

But I'm growing a bit tired of the plastic kits,that I'm looking for something else.

I've been told that the Guillow's 1000 (1/16 th,Stuka,Thunderbolt,ao )series kits even have working flaps,rudders,landing gear,etc...

Any info on that,before I might go for those kits?

Erwin

[Skyking]

Hi Erwin,

I really can't say for sure on those, as my experience with them has been mainly on their World War 1 biplanes. I did look at the P-38 once, and it looked doable from what I saw in the box though. Perhaps some others can shed more light.

Cheers

Mike

[FJ55Mike]

There's a Yahoo! group dedicated to Guillow's, called guillowsbuilders. GuillowsBuilders. They are a very active group, and while most people on there build them to fly, there are several who build them as static display only. HTH.