sir_bacharach

Junior Member
Hi,

I'm from the UK and I was thinking about having a go at building one of these myself. It would be nice to have all the parts pre cut and ready, but I can't seem to be able to get the shipping calculator to work on the store, and I'm guessing it wouldn't be cheap to get a full kit shipped to the UK what with import taxes.

So I was wondering what type and size of paper to get the plans printer onto.
If it's a case of taping paper together, where do you tape it? Do you have overlap or do you just tape it edge to edge and what kind of tape do you use?
Also wondering about what kind of foam to use.

I've looked at the tutorials and videos and they all seem to be from the perspective of buying the pre cut kit.

Any advice or pointers to videos or tutorials for absolute beginners would be great.

Thanks.

Rob.
 

GrimJet88

Member
Hiya Rob

and welcome to the foam sport :) People from the UK are at a slight disadvantage when it comes to materials as we use Adams Ready Board to build airplanes. You can purchase it and have it shipped. I also know that if you search on the forums there are people who will buy and ship the foam board to you at cost. I believe it's 1.66 per board...I could be wrong.

As far as plans you can do it different ways. Some people take the plans to staples or office depot and have the plans printed off on a full size sheet. Others print the plans on paper and then tape it together. I myself print the plans off a regular printer, tape the plans together, cut them out, then transfer the plans to poster board (tape the edges) so you can use the plans over and over.

Good luck and again welcome to the sport :)
 

paultbg

Member
Hiya Rob

and welcome to the foam sport :) People from the UK are at a slight disadvantage when it comes to materials as we use Adams Ready Board to build airplanes. You can purchase it and have it shipped. I also know that if you search on the forums there are people who will buy and ship the foam board to you at cost. I believe it's 1.66 per board...I could be wrong.

As far as plans you can do it different ways. Some people take the plans to staples or office depot and have the plans printed off on a full size sheet. Others print the plans on paper and then tape it together. I myself print the plans off a regular printer, tape the plans together, cut them out, then transfer the plans to poster board (tape the edges) so you can use the plans over and over.

Good luck and again welcome to the sport :)

the same here but I'm in UK so I use depron foam (just google), it's decently priced. however the depron foam do not have the paper sheet covering so I'm using packing tape (scotch tape, wide one) to reinforce the whole plane and gaffer tape (or duck tape, cloth tape, different names, shame thing) acting as hinges (ailerons, elevator, etc); one added benefit is that you can actually buy the tape in different colours so it's no need to paint the plane later. also the tape will not ex-foliate and will not absorb humidity (and we have plenty)
also on larger models (let's say more than 1m) or faster models (warbirds) I use a wooden spar or light aluminium strip as a wing spar otherwise, with our British winds the wings tend to flap like a bird.
 

mjcp

Senior Member
I've built a few from Westfoam foamboard bought form hobbycraft.co.uk (and always seems to be on offer of some sort in store). It is heavier than $tree but (big bonus) it is much stronger and seems to last better in crashes!

I have also bought and shipped over a couple of speed build kits to see what all the fuss was about... I'd say say your ££ and cut them out yourself...

You can get the linkage stoppers on Amazon in (sort of) bulk - 25s and 50s for under £10, push rods are peanuts from Hobbyking.co.uk when added to an order of servos. the wooden control horns are shown on the plans and can be cut from sheeting ply (local hobby store - ask for some off cuts) and laminated... just as strong and Free! (might take a few goes to get it right but once you do... happy days!)

The plans off FT in tiled format are designed for a Letter format page/printer. This is SMALLER than A4, so just print on A4 in Adobe reader and ensure you tick the box to print "actual size/no scaling" and you'll be fine. Once printed, a bit of sticky tape and a craft knife gives you your templates.

When cutting anything out, use a sharp blade, snap off a fresh tip for template cutting from paper, use a fresh blade for cutting the parts once templated (I get through a couple of blades per model). Buy quality blades eg Stanley, I have had some right ££%^%"% blades from Homebase and I guess the no-name Chinese cheap ones on eBay wont be much better...

Hobbycraft also does rolls of self adhesive coloured vinyl sheet that's good for covering/decorating.

Vinyl and Duct tape...
IMG_2879.JPG

My FT cruiser that started life as a Speed build kit and is now a $tree/Hobbycraft foamboard hybrid.
IMG_2916.JPG

mjcp
 

oOFutteOo

New member
Hey i am from Denmark same problem here. I cant get stuff shiped her from outside EU without getting at added tax of 25% plus 25£ administration fee. I use depron covered in packing tape to build like #3 it works fine i even get a bit lighter planes. The biggest problem is depron is 6mm and the plans are for $tree or Adams witch is 5mm so i have to modifi them to fit
This is my blody baron build
image.jpg
I have a plotter at work so i sneak a full size print on it when i need it :rolleyes:
 
There are other type of foam board that can work. But then you might not want to use hot glue. Using UHU Por or foam safe CA with accelerator. I use laminated floor dampening that's 5mm. Cheap at €20 for 15 sheets 700x500mm. A bit more brittle than Adams board but nothing you can't fix with various types of tape. http://forum.flitetest.com/showthread.php?22633-FT-SpitFire&p=242708&viewfull=1#post242708

Just finished the wing and the powerpod.
 
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HowlingWolven

Junior Member
What I've done for plans is to download the FT tiled plans (beware that they're scaled for American letter-size paper), print them out 100%, then use a paper trimmer to trim a bottom and right edge off of each sheet, and then just overlap and tape together strips left-to-right, then top-to-bottom.

In terms of material, I'm still slapping myself for having used Elmer's board for my Viggen build (which I seriously hope will fly at all) rather than Readi-Board. If you can find cheap, lightweight 6mm slash 1/4" foam board with an easy-to-peel paper backing, use that. Worst comes to worst, order twenty sheets of Readi-Board off of amazon, dollar tree US, or ebay, pay the shipping once, and build eight or so planes out of that.

Now that I have access to a large-format laser printer, I'm going to try 20x30 tiling of the full-size plans, to just laser them straight out of the foam.
 

lanerover

Junior Member
location

Hi let us know your location we may be able to hook up . I'm based near Chesterfield and have built about 15 of these planes. Forget buying the kits hugely expensive shipping much easier to work with what we have here. A couple of starter tips, use Depron and tape it buy from Depron UK, Hobbycraft foamboard is good for newbies but Amazon offer a better lighter and cheaper board, cut control arms from old credit/store cards. Hope this helps.😀 Kevin