Guillows Laser Cut Fairchild Build

[scigs30]

Well it has been awhile since I posted a build here, but that's because I built most of the Guillows models over the years. Well I cannot say anything for the new top notch laser conversion kits Guillows is doing. I have been spending most of my building time on electric rc, and currently working on a Guillows conversion of a 400 series P40 laser cut. Right now I just had surgery to repair a Henie so my RC building is on hold for 4 weeks. While I am healing I decided to start on something easy and nothing is easier than these laser cut Guillows kits. First the quality of the kit wood is excellent and so far the parts fit pretty well. In a matter of a few hours I have 2 fuselage sides built, the stab and rudder built and both wings built. I am using good old white glue and still the build is fast because of the laser cut parts. The plans show to build both fuselage halves separately on the plans, but I like to build the second side over the first. I built this bird back when I was 12, still have the box.....and it flew great for being crooked. Other than that everything is built per the plans and tomorrow I should have most if not all the construction done. I will cover it to the color on the box and not with the white and grey tissue that comes with the kit.......come on Guillows throw some colored tissue in the box.....Really Grey and white?

[Phugoid]

Hi Scigs

I hope you recover from your op quickly.

On the subject of the Fairchild what is the wood quality like in this kit?

My friend Peter Fardell built this a couple of years ago from and old kit, and although the wood was quite heavy it flew very well as the construction is pretty light, so if the wood is good it should go very well.

Looking forward to seeing the rest of your build.

Andrew

[scigs30]

Andrew, My first Fairchild I built back in the early 80s was built with heavy die crunched Guillows wood, and built crooked and it still flew pretty good. This kit has light balsa and goes together like a puzzle, should be a great flyer.

[scigs30]

I have been busy with the family and recovering but had sometime to work on the Fairchild. This is a great kit that goes together in a matter of hours and thats using white glue. One of the plastic wheel pants was dented pretty bad so I will have to order a new set from Guillows, but everything else is perfect. This kit could truly fly right out of the box even with the supplied prop and rubber. Now the only thing that has to be modified is the last rear top former and the side uprights on the fuselage. I will attach a picture of the mods that are needed to ease with covering and adding the side windows. So far as shown she weighs 30 grams. Once again I bummed with the colors of the supplied tissue so I will see what I have to match the color scheme on the box.

[scigs30]

More pictures

[scigs30]

Last pictures and also here is a picture of the Electric conversion project I was working on before getting hurt. I am taking pictures of my Guillows P40 build and if she flies I will post the build here.

[Mfezi]

That looks great. I really wish Guillows would laser cut the 500 and 900 series of kits also. It makes such a huge difference. Just as an example: I am almost ready to test-fly a 900-series Typhoon and a 300-series Laser Cut Pilatus Porter right now. I built them in parallel. The Typhoon is supposed to be the easier of the two to build and has much fewer parts than the Porter. However, I would say it took me more than 5 times as long to do the basic structure of the Typhoon compared to the Porter. This was because of having to sand down all the wood to release the parts, having to re-make parts due to inaccurate die cutting, having to partially cut all the notches by hand and having to replace parts such as the root rib since it ended up too thin after all the sanding that had to take place to release the parts from the balsa. I also ended up re-making the fin, as it was so thin that it ended up very flimsy. A re-made one from my own 1/16" balsa was much stiffer and actually ended up being lighter.

On the other hand, the Porter parts all fit perfectly and it really took me just a few evenings to frame it all up. A more complex model, but much easier to assemble. At the moment, there is the strange situation that the Guillows kits aimed at beginners are actually more difficult (or more time consuming) to build than some of their more advanced kits, purely due to the die cutting versus laser cutting. I think if Guillows laser cut their entire series, I would probably re-build many of the models that I built many years ago as a beginner.

[scigs30]

After building the Guillows laser cut kits, I refuse to buy another die crunched kit. I know Guillows has all their kits re drawn in cad for laser cutting, they are probably just waiting for old stock to sell off before introducing the new laser cut wood. I wish us model builders had the option to special order laser cut parts for other series.

[Mfezi]

I agree, Scigs. I also built the 500-series Hellcat recently. With that one, I made all my own parts using my own balsa, except for the strip wood that I got from the kit. In retrospect, I think cutting all my own parts on that one actually took less time than trying to stick with the kit wood and die cutting for the Typhoon.

I just want to make clear I am not ranting against Guillows - the laser cut kits are wonderful kits in my mind. More than 30 years since my first Guillows kit, I still love assembling them and I would love to re-do many of those earlier kits but starting from laser cut versions. My son is now four years old and getting more and more interested in what I am doing. I am convinced that if the 600 series Piper Cub 95 or Cessna 180 was laser cut, he would be able to do a big part of the assembling himself (with my help of course)...

[Wildpig]

Scigs,
I would say that it would be a shame to cover that beautiful wood structure of your Fairchild but, I've seen your finished models and I would really like to see your covering job.

Interesting modification to the structure. I"ll have to remember that on my next Fairchild build. I would like to build the laser cut version.

I presume this one is going to fly? Are you going to tie the wings together? I find that this is a weak point in the structure.

[scigs30]

Wildpig, Yes she is going to fly and yes the wing area is a weak area and I recommend adding 2 dowels to connect the wings. For mine, I'm just going to leave it as is and hope she does not crash, getting lazy in my old age.

[scigs30]

Well I finally got around to slapping some tissue on the frame only to find out I did not have enough of the blue. Oh well should have checked before I started covering. I pretty much have all the structures covered awaiting dope but need blue tissue to finish the details, I placed an order today. I added the gussets/fillers to window area and the last top former for the tissue to grab and sanded everything with 320 sandpaper. I am getting lazy as I get older so I covered in large sections with wet Esaki. I attached the tissue with 50/50 white glue water then misted with water to shrink the tissue. The fuselage side is ok for one piece of tissue but the top and bottoms would be better if covered in sections, of course I used one piece for each. For the top front cowl I used the front of the side pieces and attached to the middle stringer of the top cowl. The wing is also challenging, once again wetting the tissue helped with stretching over the irregular frame. As soon as the tissue arrives, I will have her finished ready for flight.

[scigs30]

More pictures

[scigs30]

One last picture. This is the bottom of the fuselage covered in one piece wet. The area in front of the landing gear is covered from tissue that extended from both sides. The tissue laps under to the first stringer. I did this on the bottom and top front cowl so the fuselage looks smoother when all done.

[scigs30]

I received my Esaki tissue in the mail and finished the Fairchild. After covering I noticed the new blue tissue had a darker color than my old tissue, oh well it will all fade with time anyway. This is built per the plans with no major modifications and it was a fun build. The landing gear moves so the structure won't break, you can see the J joint on the strut. I should have made my own nose piece since the Guillows Plastic one is not a perfect match, oh well. I am going to try and take her out tomorrow for a flight.