Best Building Guide or Book for first time builder

[Michael Crawforth]

Hello everyone,

Please can anyone offer suggestions on the best building book or guide for wooden model aircraft for the first time builder please ?

Any suggestions would be appreciated

Michael

[kc]

There are no modern books that cover electric models but the construction is much the same as traditional books. This book by David Boddington is a bargain and worth reading. Reading the build sections here on Modelflying will tell you most of what you need to know. Buy the latest RCME and see the traditional construction of Peter Miller's Ohmen design. Ask any specic questions here on the forum.

Any books by David Boddington, Peter Miller or Peter Holland will be worth reading but most are out of print but are often available cheaply on Amazon.

Edited By kc on 12/09/2018 10:05:42

[Michael Crawforth]

Many thanks

[Nigel R]

Excellent answer by kc, the Dave Boddington books - Radio Control Primer, Building & Flying RC aircraft, Building From Plans - are all particularly easy to find for a couple of pounds on ebay or amazon. As kc says, most of the books are from pre-internet days, and will tend to reflect technology of the time. However the wood building side of things is no different now.

These days, there is a lot of information on forums like this one. Ask lots of questions, you will get good advice here.

[David Davis]

I can't think of a book which will help you Michael, but if you're already in a club perhaps one of the experienced builders may be able to help you.

Have you bought a kit yet? If not a Ben Buckle kit such as the Super 60 or the Radio Queen, pictures below, might be a good place to start. These are easy to build and fly and even the most competent pilot enjoys the relaxing flying characteristics of models like these. If you fancy something more aerobatic a SLEC Fun Fly would be a good model to choose. Pictures below.

As for the equipment you'll need;

• a Swan Morton or similar balsa knife;
• a larger knife like a Stanley knife for cutting ply;
• a steel straight edge at least a foot long;
• glue of course, I have always favoured aliphatic glue but am starting to use more cyano, "super glue," these days;
• some clear plastic to cover the plan, in the old days we used grease proof paper, this would still work;
• some covering material either film or tex depending on the model;
• a covering iron;
• some sand paper and a sanding block
• and, I would add, a balsa saw.
• Finally you'll also need a table to build it on and a building board. I have two boards; one made from the sort of material used for school notice boards glued to a chip board base and the other is simply a piece of plasterboard. This is very flat, takes pins well and can be thrown away and replaced cheaply when worn out. Let us know how you get on.

[Nigel R]

Michael, what kind of model are you looking to build? Do you have any experience of RC airplanes?

[Michael Crawforth]

I have already bought the shorts Tucano kit from Sarik which was part of the mass build in 2013

[Manish Chandrayan]

This Book by Gordon Whitehead will also help a lot with ideas and how to. Although the title is about scale model, the ideas and concepts can be easily applied to any model one builds

[MABX]

This book is one of the best reference books for building i have found with simple drawings and easily understood text. I have used this book for nearly 30 years and still go back to it from time to time.

Model Aeroplane Building: Sketch by Sketch by Peter Holland. It has hundreds of illustrations and techniques from basic to advanced. You can still pick it up on ebay and Amazon.

The picture on the front of the book is one of Peter's designs "Sky Chief" which is still available from Sarik RM131 a model which I still fly regularly.

[Peter Miller]

Sad to say, I wrote a book for beginners just as asked for for Traplet. Never got published.

Ah well, We now know why.

 

Edited By Peter Miller on 12/09/2018 14:08:49

[Michael Crawforth]

Posted by Peter Miller on 12/09/2018 14:07:35:

Sad to say, I wrote a book for beginners just as asked for for Traplet. Never got published.

Ah well, We now know why.

Edited By Peter Miller on 12/09/2018 14:08:49

Any chance you can get it published else where ?

Do you still have it and would you fancy allowing it to be used ?

[ken anderson.]

hello michael, when I started off I went to the local library, they had the David Boddington books, may be worth checking if you still have a library ………. great source of reference.....some of the contents out dated by now but still worth a read to get info etc....

ken anderson...ne..1.... DB dept.

[Tim Flyer]

I have two of your model aircraft books Peter and they have been very useful indeed. “The aero modeller’s book of tips and techniques “ I think one volume covers the basics and the other advanced. I’m not sure most “beginners “ really need a very basic book as many people drawn to modeling have some sort of practical experience”. I do recommend them if available. I often use that good idea you mentioned in one of them for cowl fixing screw location using thin folded aluminium plate which was an old RAF method you mentioned.

[Geoff Peacock]

Posted by ken anderson. on 12/09/2018 14:19:13:

hello michael, when I started off I went to the local library, they had the David Boddington books, may be worth checking if you still have a library ………. great source of reference.....some of the contents out dated by now but still worth a read to get info etc....

ken anderson...ne..1.... DB dept.

I am a volunteer librarian at our local librarian - try putting in a request if you still have a local library. Try for Boddington's Building & Flying Radio Controlled Model Aircraft. It worked for me after a 40+ years layoff.

[Nigel R]

I bought DB's RC Primer for the princely sum of two pounds and thirty pence, including postage. His books are always seem to be available cheaply on Ebay or Amazon.

Sadly Pete Miller's / Peter Holland's don't come up so often.

[Mike Etheridge 1]

About sixty years ago when I made my first balsa plane at the age of nine I needed assistance from my older brother who served an apprenticeship with the Hawker aircraft company. The plane was a rubber powered Fairy Firefly covered with clear doped tissue and painted with colour dope. From that point in time when the plane was finished, I was on my own as far as building was concerned. I had two mates at the time who also made rubber powered models and by the age of twelve we progressed on to free flight IC models that flew nicely on Epsom Downs. Apart from not being able to to afford the IC planes I am not sure we could have made the planes well enough at earlier ages without the building experience.? There is a chap who lives opposite me who is very practical and an excellent carpenter who showed me a partially complete Super 60 with excellent wings but the fuselage was distorted. Since then he has made a rubber powered model but when I asked a few weeks ago about the Super 60 it seemed that no progress had been made.

I think therefore that a few simple constructions built first are worthwhile before an attempt is made at a complex model. The Old Aeromodellers Plans handbook had a star system to rate models , 'one star' the simplest up to 'five stars'. The book 1975 and earlier also had tips on building and covering----out of print ages ago I assume?

 

Edited By Mike Etheridge 1 on 12/09/2018 17:05:48

Edited By Mike Etheridge 1 on 12/09/2018 17:06:46

[Nigel R]

Michael, is that the Nigel Hawes designed Tucano?

And, same question as before, do you have any previous RC airplane experience?

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[kc]

Snap up one of these copies of Peter Holland's great book with all the constructions tips you don't find elsewhere. I think this older version has clearer drawings than the later version. For about 4 pounds! ( watch the prices rocket when one or two of them are sold! )

[Peter Miller]

Posted by Michael Crawforth on 12/09/2018 14:15:19:

Posted by Peter Miller on 12/09/2018 14:07:35:

Sad to say, I wrote a book for beginners just as asked for for Traplet. Never got published.

Ah well, We now know why.

Edited By Peter Miller on 12/09/2018 14:08:49

Any chance you can get it published else where ?

Do you still have it and would you fancy allowing it to be used ?

Unfortunately they paid half the money for it..

I may have something similar but no illustration I will have a look some time

[Peter Jenkins]

Peter check this out.

[Peter Miller]

Thanks Peter. I did download a book on publishing but never looked into it.

While I was doing the book for trapleyt I found a book that I had written many years ago which might be possible to update and go down the Kindle route. I will look into it seriously in the next few days.

[Peter Jenkins]

Be interested to know how you experience in using this route. Could you PM me when you have had some experience of it please as I'm thinking of going down that route!

[Michael Crawforth]

this maybe the way to attract younger builders to the hobby as it is really struggling to get younger people into it isn't it ?

[Dave Hess]

Some of the older books are pretty good, but they can't cover modern ways of doing things. A lot has changed with adhesives, tools and covering materials, which can make building easier or better, though the old ones still work.

Whenever I want to learn something new, my first port of call is always Youtube. It's free and just about everything is covered somewhere. The problem is that anybody can make a Youtube video and I've seen some appalling ones on things that I know about, so you have to use a bit of discretion and judgment with the content. The thumbs up and thumbs down underneath it can give you some clue.

I just did a quick browse and found a couple of reasonable ones. I even learn some new things from the second one, especially the detail and methods he uses for tissue covering:

**LINK**

**LINK**