Covering Guillows 900 series Mustang

[scigs30]

Sometimes I see partially built kits on eBay and I like buying them to finish the build. This is an older Mustang that someone built and had already to cover so I bought it for 10 bucks. The builder did a great job of building prepping for covering, and the shipper did a great job of getting it to me in once piece. You know it is an older kit by the yellowing canopy, white non translucent plastic parts and of course the Guillows catalog with some OOP kits. The tissue is old domestic tissue and it actually went on pretty nice but not much shrink so I put it on nice and tight. I will keep the parts pinned to the board and tomorrow brush on 2 coats of clear dope and let that dry 3 days before finishing. I am thinking for my next Guillows build a 300 series laser cut and show how to convert to RC. Still have to think about that one.

[scigs30]

You know it is an older kit with the cut and paste decals. I think I have another kit with waterslide decals that I will use or if not make my own.

[scigs30]

After 3 days of allowing the dope to dry I finished my Mustang today. With the kit rubber added she actually balanced out perfect without clay and with rubber weighs 20 grams, glides great. I am going to try and get video and pictures of her flying tomorrow. These 900 series kit are some of the best WWII planes I have seen as far as building fast and easy, they also fly great. The one thing I like is the instructions recommend using 36 inches of 3/32 inch rubber from a hobby store. This allows a beginner to buy the correct rubber for a longer lasting flight. I am thinking of starting a build on easy RC conversion of a 300 series kit built out of the box.

[Kman]

Hi scigs30, I am relatively new to the art of stick and tissue. In the past I did build the 300 series Cherokee, the build was enjoyable, and I am always amazed but he alchemy of transforming stick and tissue in to a beautiful object. As discussed on previous posts on this forum, the windscreen was a pain to do and as yet I think the only way around that one is to make your own.

The plastic cowling was the other issue. I have seen many different ways on this forum of how to make a removable nose block out of one, but to me it seems a bit undesirable to to have to engineer a new structure underneath the cowling for the benefit of stretch winding.

At the moment I am building the 905 Mustang. One of the reasons for choosing this was that there was no plastic cowling to deal with, I did make a removable nose block but I am now wondering if that was necessary. I have noticed that you have moved away from making removable nose blocks on your 900 and 500 series builds. How do you manage to stretch wind in the current configuration of your P-51? Am I right to think that it is designed with the view that you should pull out the propeller with the thrust bearing each time you wind?

[scigs30]

Kman,
I love building Guillows kit for the memories and they are just plane fun to build, I am not building to compete. When I built a model to compete with, normally I build it from scale plans and it has all the functions of a competitive model. With these Guillows I am just trying to get them to fly in a circle for 10-30 sec definitely not enough flight time for most competitions. So building a functioning nose block takes too much time for a model I am not even going to compete with. I now glue the plastic cowl on after I have balanced the completed build to include the rubber. I add my clay to the nose the nose then glue the plastic cowl on and if needed during trim I will just add down thrust to the plastic bearing. I am not using a long piece of rubber, for the most part just using the rubber band that Guillows sells Believe it or not it is enough to fly once you lube the rubber. To place the rubber I tie it to a string and thread it through the rear. For winding I use this little winder, 300 turns and off she goes.

[CedarBranchFisher]

Hobby Lobby sells the winders.

[Kman]

scigs30,
Thanks for taking the time to post such a comprehensive answer. Your builds are a true inspiration.