| Image Comments |
| David Duckett | 05-Nov-07 11:01 |
| All Guillows kits I know of are the same relative to formers, ribs, and making notches. |
| David Duckett | 05-Nov-07 11:12 |
| The die cut is 1/16 below the outer edge of the fuselage formers and the wing ribs. The instructions say to lay the part on this plan and mark where the notches are to be cut, those marks on the outside. Then you have to cut the notches perpendicular to what is already there. Most Guillows kits do not have notches cut in the wing spar, what the ribs sit on, except the larger kits and they never line up correctly unless you follow the instructions and cut them as directed and I find them to be more of a problem than a help. |
| SteveM | 05-Nov-07 12:52 |
| That's how my little 500 series kit was, just one pre-cut at the bottom and I had to cut the sides of the notch. Not that the wood was high quality or anything. |
| moostang51 | 05-Nov-07 17:20 |
| Never considered this a problem. Before any notches were cut I'd always set them at their actual location on the plan and since I'm building with 3/32" stringers, I would pin one over the top of the Guillows proposed location to check for accuracy. Occasionally a premarked notch didn't allow for a smooth flowing long stringer. Ergo... two silver bullets and a new mark made all appear well, notches maked and cut. |
| moostang51 | 05-Nov-07 17:47 |
| Which one? The 2000 series are huge and quite interesting to build. Haven't done a 1000 yet, three in the hangar though. If I play it right, a fourth under the tree from the queen. Love for the Airacobra P-39 but quite expensive. |
| David Duckett | 05-Nov-07 17:57 |
| Guillows could indeed provide a better grade of balsa in many cases. It would also be more pleasing to the eye if all the balsa were of the same consistency. You notice the difference when you open a kit from someone else. All the wood in the Todays Hobbies kits and the wood in this current House of Balsa kit is of very high quality and consistency. And none of the pieces in either are identified on the wood although they are on the plan. And all the wood blocks are very good as well--not too hard and not too soft so that carving and sanding them isn't nearly the pain it might seem to be. Since I cover and paint all my models, and make some of them into nearly solid objects, the differences in the colors of the different pieces are of no concern. And likewise neither is breaking a former or screwing up a notch for the same reasons. I keep several sheets of good quality balsa and several of less than good for the various phases of building. I guess I've built so many of these that wood is not a concern and if I can get a stringer or two in place and still maintain the intended shape, I win the fight. |
| David Duckett | 05-Nov-07 18:17 |
| I don't think you've rustled any feathers. It is perhaps seeing your truly outstanding work on the front of the Spirit that makes us think you're perfect. Well, if he can do that, why is balsa such a big deal? And if I personally have a loyalty to Guillows it's because they have so much of my money. They are not the only maker of kits. They do have some of the best plans in the business. It's a bit late now but if you do order your next kit from them direct, make sure you open it and check all the pieces, balsa, plastic, and decals. If you don't like the wood send it right back to them. The same with the plastic because I've seen many flaws over the years. And if it has a canopy make sure it's acceptable. And don't try to apply the decals for the wing of the Spirit in one piece. And throw those plastic pieces which are supposed to cover where the struts meet the wing away. They are a total pain and I know you will see a better way to make them. |
| jgood | 06-Nov-07 13:04 |
| This is the first full-length novel on VA... |
| poppy | 06-Nov-07 13:32 |
| What more can be said! |
| David Duckett | 06-Nov-07 14:46 |
| Sorry. |
| SteveM | 06-Nov-07 15:37 |
| Think of it as bug testing. ;-) What language is this running on anyways? |
| poppy | 06-Nov-07 17:45 |
| No need to be sorry,DD. This contains some excellent info. |
| Barnstormer | 06-Nov-07 18:17 |
| I must agree, this has been very educational. |
| jgood | 06-Nov-07 19:04 |
| David, don't be silly!SteveM, it's built with PHP and MySQL, if that's what you meant. |
| SteveM | 06-Nov-07 20:19 |
| Yah, that's what I meant. I was curious as I wasn't seeing any tell tale signs like *.php file names. |
| hjlittman | 07-Nov-07 16:35 |
| Another thing that you should do when opening a Guillow's kit is to look at the back of the decal sheet. On most there is a number printed such as 8-4. That would indicate that the decal sheet was printed in August of 2004. The kit was assembled 2 to 3 months later. This lets you know how long the kit has been sitting on the shelf. The Guillows people are very well aware of the dissatisfaction with the quality of their wood. From those of us who build to fly the problem has been with the weight. I always weigh the wood in a kit and calculate it's density. One 500 series Bf-109 I opened had balsa that was 27 pounds/cubic foot. That's above the low side of the standard for red oak! More typically their wood was in the 16 to 18 pound/cubic foot range. Good for static building, since it's sturdy, but still too heavy to fly without radical lightening of the structure by thickness sanding, reducing outline thicknesses and adding lightening holes. In essence, you had to severely re-engineer the kit to get it to fly. They have changed balsa suppliers and are trying to keep the weight of the wood in the current production kits in the 8 to 12 pound/cubic foot range. I built a 300 series kit with current wood, made no serious attempt to lighten it, and it came out 14 grams lighter than the last one that I built after major lightening efforts. Unfortunately, the lighter wood is also softer and with the dies wearing out there is a greater problem with die "mashing" instead of cutting. A new set of dies for one model costs about $7000 so they have to consider the sales volume of each kit. I understand that they have ordered three more laser cutting beds and have someone working full time on redrawing their parts layouts for laser cutting. (This involves actually building the model after each test cutting to check for errors. Want the job?) As more series go to laser cutting the quality situation should improve both in weight and quality of fit. At least that's the word that I got. |
| SteveM | 07-Nov-07 17:51 |
| Very interesting, thanks for the good info. Do you mean to say they actually need people to build kits to test them? Sounds like a fun job to me! |
| harve | 07-Nov-07 22:07 |
| I recall that someone mentioned that the 400 series is currently being re-done with laser cuts. I don't recall the model or the post but I am positive it was here in va. |
