How long does it take to complete?

In a post on another thread, Ty dropped a nugget of info about how long it took him to complete a ship.

"The plane was started in 1974 and finished in 1999."

I began a Twin Combat Streak in the late 70's in San Diego and got as far as the airframe completed before work lapsed. I moved, let's see-- one, two, three, four, five, six, seven times since then, always managing to transport a fragile balsa airframe as I went. I kept wanting to complete and fly the thing, but never had a good building space or enough spare time (or the dedication) to put a covering on the ship.

During the last move, a box slipped and smashed one wing, but left the fueslages intact--I'm wondering if rebuilding the wing is sensible, so I have all the parts. I'm at the point that the control system technology is so old that if I build this thing, I'll have to tear it apart and reengineer and rebuild the controls.

None the less the Twin Combat Streak is a wonderful concept and I just can't bring myself to put the pieces in the fireplace and be done with it.

This is not the kind of story I would normally say anything about as it seems to indicate a propensity for procrastination. Or a problem with closure. Or whatever. As it is I have a Jetco Dolphin in clear that has been hanging on the wall in that shape for two years.

Here are the questions for the thread.

What is the longest duration build you ever indulged in? Does anyone else have a tale of an airframe that languished in some state for a long period and then was completed? Does anyone have a project sitting around in some state of completion that has been that way for a long while?

Or are Ty and myself just a pair of oddball slackers?

Cy ('n Ty)

You guys sound pretty speedy to me! My Oriental has been languishing in framed up mode for approximately 3 years.

3 Years?

I'm closer to three decades on the Combat Streak, if I finish it. I also have a wing covered and a fuselage bare for a Clipped Wing Cub.

Naaa. I think you need to have a project started but incomplete for 10 years or so to joing our slackers club.

A question to those who qualify:

What took so long?

How come an airplane building project will hit a wall and stop?

What keeps an airframe around if it's not completed?

I think what keeps some projects around for so long is they simply look better in frame than covered, kinda like nekked gurls.
Also we all suffer from the "Pa Kettle" syndrome, "Yea ahh, I'll have to get around to that one of these days Ma". Remember, or am I really that olde??

Percy Kilbride and Marjorie Maine were Pa and Ma...hope I spelled the names correctly.

Cy,
I had a Sig Ackrobat that only took twenty years to finish.
I presently have another ship that I am putting the finish on that is about 10 years old.
But I did finish a Giant Stuntmaster in four days last year!
Bill <><

My son framed up a Goldberg Buster to the point of covering in 1980. It hung in my workshop until I finished and flew it in 2003. Does this count?

For purposes of this thread, if an airframe was started before 1990 and finished after 2000, it qualifies.

Or any similar decade long building experience.

Is an airplane frame hanging unfinished on the shop wall for ten years a testiment to optimism and determination or an certain sign of Incompletion Syndrome?

Here's something from the archives related to the topic.

http://www.clstunt.com/cgi-bin/dcforum/dcboard.cgi?az=read_count&om=2976&forum=DCForumID1

I have a Sterling Super Ringmaster I started in 1972, been working on it periodically and is ready to cover, maybe sometime this winter. Can't rush into these things.

I think I still have you beaten on "procrastination" - so far:

My first Sterling "Yak-9", which I dearly loved, bit the dust for the second and final time back before 1960. After seeing the picture of Bill Werwage and his Nats winning "Ares" in the 11/59 American Modeler, I built a couple smaller CL stunters and a "Royal Rodent", but wanted another "Yak-9", to be painted just like the elder Bill's plane. I started it, but got sidetracked by lots of other things (girl friend, music, school,...). The result was that I promised myself that I'd complete it when I had time. Well, there was college, early jobs, moving about, racing, and...life...without the Yak. Finally, at Christmas time of 2001, when I decided to return to CL, I rescued it from the shelf over my dad's garage (our old workshop).

So after more than 40 winters in the old garage, I set about finishing it. I used acetone to remove the old polished Sig sanding sealer from the wings and removed the warped planking. I had to replace more warped kit wood, but used whatever I could, despite its weight. By the time I got it smoothed and silvered, deciding to just spray on trim colors, I knew that it was becoming the world's heaviest Yak. So it has set for many months as a low priority for flight. It's finished, and yet it isn't. Looks nice though. I'll have to spend a little more time on it to really fulfill the childhood promise; so I'll finish finishing it "when I have time".

Meanwhile the P-Force has been finished - 'took longer than most - and my new several-hundred-piece wing is a "work in progress" too. But if I keep typing these things, the current project may rival the Yak for this thread!

I won a Sig Chipmunk, CL-3, at a Regional meet which also sent me to the Nats in 1969. That's when the Navy still hosted the Nats at Willow Grove, PA. The buildings done, but I lack a canopy, paper, & paint to finish the job.

There's a fellow over on FlightLines (the "Speaking of Smoothies" thread) who has a Smoothie nearly finished (basic frame-up, no covering), and apparently it's been like that for about 44 years. He's finally decided to finish it. I think he qualifies, for sure! Me, I "build fast". I finish most planes in a few months, but the Smoothie I just finished was started in December, 2001.

I can't answer that yet, because it isn't finished. Commenced my Frog Attacker in 1964, in lodgings in Southampton. It was covered in light yellow silk, but that perished before the model has been completed, so it's already due for recovering before it's been finished! It was once displayed on the SAM stand at the Model Engineer Exhibition, and the so-an-so's labelled it "Being refurbished"! It was being built for a Russian Kometa, (ST Copy), but it will now be re-engined for repro Frog 500. (Another plug for one of my engines!)

Hmm. I need to clarify things here. In 1972 I started a kit box Nobler, covered the tail feathers in Japanese tissue and was installing the tail and nothing came out right. I tried and tried and got so mad I threw the entire plane into the basement wall, shattering the wing and fuselage. I looked at the clock and it was 3 am!! I started at 6 pm the night before. Too tired for any little problems. Later that week cut a new fuselage and framed it. Meanwhile at a club meeting, AL Culver stated he had made a foam cutter with wire and a transformer, would we like to try it. I went over the next night and cut my first foam wing for a Genesis and started on it. Meanwhile I was really into free flight and had a bunch of contests coming up. I got so involved in that aspect of the hobby I delayed work on the Nobler and Genesis. Next thing I know I'm transferred to San Diego for new construction, pre commissioning crew for the USS Hewit DD966. While in San Diego, I joined the Orbiteers and did only free flight until 1979. Did a little cl at NATC Memphis for a year, retired, divorced, moved to St. Louis and did some carrier and combat. In 1982 went completley crazy over HO and HOn3 model trains, gave, yes gave away a lot of that "silly" model plane stuff. In 1997 I moved to Huntsville, AL and one fine day while driving around looking for the JC building I saw two "olde" guys flying cl. I got excited and we drove down to the end of the old runway and there was Rollin Kessler and Jim Pollock. I jabbered like an idiot for about a half hour about all my kits and incomplete planes in the garage still packed since 1979. They just looked at me with that "yeah, right" look. So I had to put up or shut up and thus I finished my Nober with a Mike Stott foam wing and my Geneis with my foam wing. And the rest as they say is, so, what's next?? That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Have a Stearman kit started in 1968, stab is built but rest is still in the box.
Have a Flying fool started in 1970 the wings are built, will start on the fuselage someday.
Fokker was started in 1979, now if I can just find where the elevator and rudder are might finish it.
Of course there have been many other planes started completed flown and put away in the trash can for permanent storage during this time period too.

Have a Magician that I started in 1964 and fininshed when I returned to the hobby a couple of years ago. Count?

>Have a Magician that I started in 1964 and fininshed when I
>returned to the hobby a couple of years ago. Count?

Perfect example.

What keeps us hanging on to these unfinished airframes while the middle of our lives goes by?

I initially got to a point in the construction of the twin combat streak where I was stuck. I realized that some of the things I had done when I first assembled it were incorrect and that I would have to take it a bit apart to put it further together. And that disturbed me, so I set it aside.

Then I never got back to it and somehow it lapsed from a project I was 'doing' to a project I was 'keeping around'.

And then years passed while I had my life happen, moved and it became not a project, but an airframe I was hauling around out of habit. Not pretty enough to keep as a piece of art. Thinking back, I cannot even tell you where I kept the ##### thing in a couple of the apartments I rented over the years. But everytime I would move I was faced with the problem of transporting a fragile balsa skeleton and managed to get it done with the thing intact until this last move.

Seems like I was keeping it on the basis of pure inertia--because I had kept it so long it was just something that was mine, something I needed to take with me.

I guess all the work I put into it made it valuable.

I still have a small cache of photos I took of it back in San Diego.

Now I wonder if the inside of the tanks are clean. I know I need to reengineer the controls. And the outer wing panel is smashed--although there is a stub sticking out of the outboard fuselage to graft a replacement onto.

Winter is coming on.

I wonder if I should just put the carcass in the fireplace and be done with it or come up with a plan, disassemble the broke and wrong parts and build up the dream ship I had planned when I began.

Is there any downside to balsa drying for years in the form of an airframe before it is completed?

I guess I could think of this now as a rebuild from a wreck, without having to take off the covering I never put on it or deal with the oil that never got run through the engines.

Thoughts?

I think we keep some of the frames around because they are a link to an era when things were "better" or more fun for us and they represent a "part" of our selves with the effort going into them. Usually I stop due to moving or a job change or meeting someone in my other hobby and off I go on that. Also I have been to point where nothing comes out right and just stop in disgust until my mind set changes. By then I am off on another plane. My biggest hold up believe it or not, is what paint scheme to put on the darn thing and not look like all the others, or do a classic scheme? I have spent weeks on this. So far nothing far out.

Cy,
I would definitely do the finishing up of the twin streak
I believe it would give you a lot of satisfaction to see it out there on the end of some lines.
Maybe one flying session then hang it up!
I did this with the first Smoothie after I rebuilt it. Three flights and it's now "on the wall", probably to never be flown again. But it is a "living memory" of my first summer flying *toy airplanes*.
Bill <><

Guillow's P40 Warhawk! (the .020 one, 20 something inch span.) Brother-in-law Carl and I went to Huston's Hobby Shop, gonna build and fly again.(1964) Build airframe, wing, decide to sheet it, go with .049, firewall is designed and pushed back 1/2", fits nose & cowling PERFECT! Wing L.G. is designed, bent, installed. Tailfeathers framed, ribbed, sheeted. Sanding sealer is applied, sanded off, exhaust headers made functional, (engine inverted, shrouded) My, it's getting a little heavy...put it away. Ringmaster's pretty cheap, want to fly...
Today I found it. In a box, with my Musciano Staggerwing Beech, the large one. Norvel might do it better, but I am determined to finish it now that I'm even crazier.
Epitaph from 3 wives: "Michael doesn't throw ANYTHING away"

Cy,

Here are a some of the unfinished projects in my workshop.

The DH Hornet was started in 1977 and never finished. It was a milti-engine airplane with opposite rotating engines to nullify propeller effects and a completely automatic retracting gear. It looks finished but the guts and system would still take another 400-500 hours to complete. I have already have about 700 hours into the project and just plain BURNED OUT!

The F-51B fuselage still in the jig was started in 1979, about the time I put all my models away until 1999. It is damaged but repairable. The built in tank and canted engine build the lightest airplanes but fit engines of ST 46 mounting configuration only. I would worry most about the built in tank being rusted. I suppose the tank could be examined by cutting a hole in the bottom of the tank and using a flashlight and dental mirror, but I won't. The new Snaggletooth 2 should effectively obsolete the earlier airplanes.

Ron B.
F4Fguy

Does FF count? I have a Comet Zipper "A" I started when I was in 9th grade*.All the pieces are still there.The print wood has been cut out,and minor assemblies(stab,rudder)done.It's waiting for the muse to come to me.

*1947/48