balsa wood planes

Ebay. Constant stream of those passing thru there daily.

You are from Portland and you don't know about

Do a web search on "Jim Walker" some time -- Portland native, inventor of control line flying, namesake of the C/L field in Delta Park, general all around cool guy (or at least the stories I've read say so...).

Do you want those designs from the 40's and 50's? Any design in particular? Free flight, rubber, controline, or even early R/C?

Thanks for your reply. I will not get into rc. I am trying to teach my grandson the satisfaction of working with ones hands, instead of playing with the computer. He likes airplanes, and I thought that the balsa wood planes would be more of a challenge than plastic. No doubt that in the future he will advance to RC. Thank you

Skeezix,

If you hit on the formula for teaching kids to do something that takes more than 8 seconds you should bottle it and sell it. Maybe it would save the country. :-) But then you might not be able to take it to market as it would be seen by the EPA as polluting little minds and stimulating brain activity that could prove dangerous to our politicians as they grew into adulthood.

Then I gather you are not intrested in the classics, but just want a plane to build and fly. Balso models are still made today, not just the old designs.

I suggest going to

and look at their selection of rubber powered planes. The larger ones are more costly but actually easier to build. Try Herr, Pica, and Sig as some of the better name brands. There are others but some make smaller peanut sizes, or are of poor quality, or just heavy wood (Guillow).

For a starter, one that will fly and a kid has a chance of success with would be the Lancer by Gillows.

Red S.

Try

instead. Better selection!

Good "stick-model" kits can be found at:

Dumas products ww.dumasproducts.com and really good ones at Easy Built Models,

There is also Diels Engineering, Inc. at

I don't think I've hit it exactly, but my 8-year old is very interested in completing this PT-20 model. He's none too fond of sanding tho. :)

With a little guidance, he was able to lay up the wing panels pretty much on his own and then glue 'em up. He's a bit heavy with the accelerator when using thick CA, but does a pretty nice job.

My dad got me into balsa 'n tissue models when I was about 10. WAY more fun than the plastic ones ever were to build...

The kid in me isn't all that fond of sanding either. :-) Move him over to alphetic resins, better for him in the long run. Teaches patience. :-) It also gives him time to recover from mistakes dad shouldn't see. :-)

Red S.

I still use aliphatic for quite a bit of stuff when I'm building. I've *never* seen the glue let go - it's always the wood that breaks

1st.. Great stuff aliphatic resin.

Dad checks everything before the boy breaks out the glue.. I'm very pleased he pretty much gets it right before he asks me to check it over. Can't wait to head to the school with the buddy box and get him flying..