Rubber band airplane thoughts.

COLTIMPALA

COLTIMPALA

Yo homie... is that my briefcase?
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My uncle would buy us several of these as kids for Christmas, and I paid dearly for them to get my daughter a set.
But I can't leave anything alone and I have a full wood shop just begging me to do something fun.
I'd like to copy one of these and make a few with a 24-36" wingspan. Could I do this using cedar? I have tons of cedar and no Balsa. On that same note, I'd need to have a propeller of equivalent size. I could most likely rig something using an RC plane propeller and mill some parts to basically scale up the propeller used for these.

So anyway, help me out here guys, would this be a cool project? Is doing so unrealistic?

Before you suggest I buy an RC plane, NO. Been there, done that, what's left of it is laying mangled on my work bench.

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Hobby lobby stocks the balsa products. Have to see what's in stock but you should be able to get something.

When I was a kid building those kits I would have killed for a store with all that balsa...
 
I was probably no more than 8 or so when I had one. It was pretty decent size. Balsa wood frame that I had to cut out with an exacto knife and glue together. Then it got covered with tissue paper.

Had a blast with that thing. Kept rebuilding it until either I ran out of spare materials or it got so destroyed I couldn't fix it anymore.

I eventually moved up to plastic models. I blew most of those up by putting firecrackers in the wings before their "flight" from my bedroom window
 
1075tech said:
I was probably no more than 8 or so when I had one. It was pretty decent size. Balsa wood frame that I had to cut out with an exacto knife and glue together. Then it got covered with tissue paper.

Had a blast with that thing. Kept rebuilding it until either I ran out of spare materials or it got so destroyed I couldn't fix it anymore.

I eventually moved up to plastic models. I blew most of those up by putting firecrackers in the wings before their "flight" from my bedroom window
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You were that kid weren't you????



We coulda been friends.
 
I built a balsa and paper rubberband biplane kit in Jackson, Miss. with my dad’s knives in about 1964.

Holy crap I haven’t thought about that in a long time.
 
1075tech said:
Used to blow up Lincoln Log houses too. Sometimes in the house.
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I accidentally launched an Estes rocket in our living room once. When it started to go off I panicked and jerked the launch controller causing the rocket to tip over and launch across the floor burning a permanent black streak across the tan carpet. It remained there another 15 years until the house was sold and that mark is even in the Zillow pictures. I'll try and find it later if I can.
 
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They damn sure tried hard to get it out but it's still there if you know what you're looking at. That spot at the far left is where it burned for a few seconds before shooting off across the floor. These pictures were from 2012ish I believe and based on the quality were taken using a potato.

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I like the fabric over a wood frame. Isn't that similar to many biplanes?

For the rubber band might need something larger such as an exercise band.

As for blowing stuff up... Yeah been there done that. Fire crackers inside matchbox cars rolling down a hill sadly didn't have the effect I hoped for based on TV car crashes. Maybe If I had the Internet 40 years ago I would have tried lawnmower gas, foam packing peanuts and zip lock bags....
 
You could probably get by with a non balsa body if you make the wings out of foam board "bones" with a heat shrink film skin. The lift to weight ratio on those things is crazy.
 
NCLivingBrit said:
You could probably get by with a non balsa body if you make the wings out of foam board "bones" with a heat shrink film skin. The lift to weight ratio on those things is crazy.
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That's a good idea đź’ˇ

Plenty of foam packaging. Cut it up with a fine tooth scroll saw
 
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1075tech said:
That's a good idea đź’ˇ

Plenty of foam packaging. Cut it up with a fine tooth scroll saw
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Or use the Dollar Tree foam board and laminate it together with some PVA for extra stiffness.

That's what I do for war game structures that need to support weight. Just make sure to find sheets where the paper is bonded well or it just peels apart there.
 
Peter Stripol on YouTube makes a ton of planes with foam board, including at least one that carried his tiny self. You should browse his channel, he does build videos for pretty much every project.
 
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