Building RC Scale Airplanes

I haven't been as consistent so far with this blog as I have with some of my others, but am nonetheless making a little bit of headway on my first 1/6 scale airplane build. So far I've completed the Williams Brothers 1/6 scale Le Rhone engine kit . Bought it from Proctor Enterprises when I purchased the 1/6 Sopwith Camel kit. Looks pretty good! Used Model Master metallic buffing paints and other regular paints. Also made a roughly 1/6 scale prop (turns out that I made it a touch too small. The actual scale for the prop is 1/6.375. Oh well... it'll work). Made it by laminating thin planks of ash and mahogany and then cutting out and shaping it on my band saw and stationary sander. A couple thin coats of varnish and it looks passable. Here is the back of the engine. Sorry about the blurry picture. Dressed up the hub of the prop with real machine bolts and washers from the local Ace Hardware. It's nice that they carry an assortment of miniature screws, bo...

So far I haven't actually started building, but I have started collecting the required stuff. To this point I have or have at least ordered: The Proctor 1/6 scale Sopwith Camel kit . I also ordered from Proctor the Williams Brothers Vickers machine gun kit, the wheels, and the Le Rhone engine kit... all 1/6 scale and all plastic kits (except the wheels). 5 meters of "natural" color Solartex covering from Balsa USA . 1/6 scale British cockpit detail kit from Arizona Models . 1/6 scale paint masks from Red5Designs . Simulated rib stitching from Scale Rib Stitch . "Pinking" tape kit from Pink-It (actual order came from "Decal-It") but you have to email them as they don't have an online store. Gobs of paint, a covering iron, some misc. parts and such, all from my local hobby shop - Galaxy Hobby in Lynnwood, WA. Pictures once I actually get started! Aloha!

It's official... I've embarked upon the Proctor Enterprises 1/6 scale Sopwith F.1 "Camel" build! Yay! We'll see how it goes. Fingers crossed that it will look good. First things first... 1. While the kit is designed as a flying Radio Control (RC) airplane, I am building it as a static scale model instead. Albeit a large one! 2. While larger than the Model Airways 1/8 scale model, it will not be as 'scale' due to the kit be an RC kit instead of a scale kit. 3. Unlike the Model Airways 1/8 kit, my scale version will be covered. You won't see any of the framework. So that allows me to hide some things and not worry so much about the hidden scale details as I would on the Model Airways kit. 4. However, in the end, this kit will end up costing me just as much as if I simply bought a Model Airways kit! Gulp... Wish me luck! Peace!

Thanks for visiting my scale airplane build blog! I've done a number of other build blogs for RC sailboats and a Pygmy Kayak. Now I'm hoping to do both a 1/6 scale Sopwith Camel on this blog and a 1/8 scale RC hydroplane replica of the 1957 Miss Wahoo on my scale hydroplane blog . Not sure yet which one I'll try first though, so stay tuned! So far I have two kits from Proctor Enterprises : 1. The VK 1/8 scale Sopwith Camel but built by Proctor now. They apparently have the rights to the VK catalog and are reproducing the old VK kits. 2. A vintage VK 1/8 Nieuport 17 . The Sopwith Camel kit is brand new by Proctor, but apparently is based off of the original VK kit from the 1950's and 60's. The VK Nieuport is from 60's as far as I can tell. I bought it off of eBay from some guy who had it in his garage or storeroom for decades. It seems complete. I'll probably do the Sopwith Camel first, but as a static scale model instead of a flying radio cont...