Some Comet/ now Guillows Builds?

[cliffm]

My Bad! I discovered that Great Britain was the first to order this aircraft and it was by them called the mustang. Shortly after the U.S. ordered some with the designation A-36 Apache, later to become the "MUSTANG".I'm still in search of a kit to go along with the scale on my 1000 series Guillows warbirds. I have one that is close but the detail is not there and the scale isn't quite right. Anybody seen one that might be close?

[scigs30]

Here is my Comet Ercoupe, pretty much built out of the box with minor changes to the nose plug and landing gear. It has been a slow build because I have been busy building new Estes rockets. Estes did something that Guillows should do. Estes was a great company in the 70's and 80's but in the 90s and recent they changed their tune. Estes did what every other company did, went with cruddy RTF rockets. After listening to all the complaints, Estes released a bunch of old rockets from back in the day. Like Guillows who bought Comet, Estes bought Centuri rockets. So Estes also just released old Centuri kits. So I have been having fun building those. Wish Guillows would do something like that and release some OOP kits from Comet and Guillows.

[Phugoid]

Nice build, I agree with you about the comet kits. We never had them in the UK, but you can see from the construction that they were designed to fly and fly well. Even if Guillows released "plan packs" rather than commiting to tooling and production that would be a step forward.

I built this one from a Keil Kraft kit as a boy, it was one of the few that actually did a reasonable impression of flying for me even with the awful rubber and prop supplied in the kit.

[scigs30]

I finished the Ercoupe and she is ready for flight. Those are not the wheels and prop I will be using. This has been a fun and challenging build. The fuselage has a lot of curves so it was tough to cover, but I covered in many small sections to avoid any wrinkles. The hardest part was the fillets and I am not happy with them. If I had it to do over, I would have left them off unless I painted the plane. Everything blends in pretty good except for the the fillets, they stick out like a sore thumb. Oh well, too late now. Total weight is 28 grams. Covering is Esaki applied with diluted Elmers glue and coated with Nitrate Dope.

[scigs30]

I took the Ercoupe to the park today for some trimming. I had to add some nose weight, used a 7 inch Peck Prop and used Peck wheels. I also trimmed it with 2 loops of 1/8 rubber. Total weight is around 36 to 38 grams. I only gave her a few turns by hand and she flew nice and slow with the big prop. Next I will add a turn tab and take her to the flying field. I was by myself so the only pictures I took were before I trimmed her.

[John G Jedinak]

Beautiful work, Scigs!!!!!

[scigs30]

I am building one more Comet kit before I move back to Guillows. This is the North American Trainer and should be a fun build.

[lukebozek1]

Penn Valley Hobby Center has a pretty decent listing of Comet Kits being made by a 3rd party. You should check out the website for some off the wall manufacturers. But the listing is pretty deep for models there.

[scigs30]

I am sure the quality of the kits are Penn Valley are much better than the old Comet kits. But the fun part about building these planes is the nostalgia of using the old parts. Also most of these kits are pretty cheap on eBay, the same price of a new kit. The parts to this kit are die crushed like Guillows, but I was able to cut them all out with no major problems. Let the building begin.

[cliffm]

J.G.J. expressed my opinion. Nice work. Looking forward to some posts on the Ryan.

[lukebozek1]

I picked up a couple Comet Kits on E-Bay that are all print-wood kits, not die-cut. Or die-crushed. I have seen a lot of your meticulous work and it appears that you always cut all new ribs and formers from decent balsa. I opened a Guillows kit last night to read the plans, and I was appaled at the condition of the die-cut pieces/sheets. The die-cut sheets were really thin, but the balsa was all dried out, and the sheets were split, and looking at the poor outline of the ribs, there will be a lot of work performed to get ready fot this build. I really don't remember the Guillows Kits looking this poorly in the years past.

[scigs30]

Right now most of my Guillows kits are built using the wood in the kit, if it is under 15lb/ft and not too crushed. If it is heavier than that or crushed, I call Guillows for replacement wood. I will use the wood in the Comet kit if I have multiple kits. If I only have one kit, I will just cut my own pieces out of 8-12lb/ft balsa. Also a lot of the Comet kits come with dried out wood that is warped.

[scigs30]

The parts in the kit are like Guillows, die crushed. I sanded the back of each sheet and then cut each part out. Since I will not be painting this bird, I will sand off the print so it does not show in the end. I started by building the sides, the parts fit perfectly. I pre shape the top longeron since it is curved. I put both pieces in a water/ammonia mixture for about one hour then pin them to the plans. When dried they have the correct curve. If I did not do this first, then I take the chance of the top longeron pulling the fuselage out of alignment.

[Phugoid]

Hi Scigs,

What ratio water/ammonia mix do you use?

Andrew

[scigs30]

I just guess with my mixture, but somewhere around 75 percent water.
This was a fast easy build, I was home the last couple of days sick, so I had time to build. As you can see this is a stock build with the supplied wood and no modifications. This is a little on the heavy side at 17 grams, but should still fly pretty good. I will cover with Esaki yellow and blue paper. I will replace the prop and wheels with a Peck prop and wheels.