As old as CL, the beat goes on, and on and on...

[Ty Marcucci]

Hmmm, still  an argument with no end in sight.

[Dennis Adamisin]

WOW!

Great bit of research to even FIND this article.  Ya know in the context of that article (written in 1951?) today's PERFECT laser cut kits - would be cheatin! 

I guess the singers change but the song remains the same...

Another great post Ty!   

[Marvin Denny]

 Go back a few more years and you will find similar  "howlings" and "railings"  about Die cutting.  It defeated the BOM rule as the builder no longer had to cut out the parts.  They were printed in an ink on the balsa(or other material) and were a BEAR to cut out.


  Bigiron

[Will Hinton]

As I remember it, most of that balsa almost needed a torch to cut sucessfully!  Some of that stuff was HARD!
Will

[George]

I remember cutting out a few of those old printwood kits. You learned to use a SHARP knife or single edged razor blade. You learned to cut WITH the grain, and to repair split balsa when you didn't. You also found that if the parts to a multi-part fuselage former did not fit, it was YOUR fault.

Those WERE the days. 

George

Additional thought: How many of us used the old Comet cement shown in the pic? 

[Jim Kraft]

I learned early on to cut outside the line and sand the part down to the line. Gave you a nice clean edge to glue and the parts fit. I still use that same method today as I still scratch build most of my planes. I now use a pin through the plans over the wood to mark the line of the part. I still cut them oversize and sand down to the line. I don't use a pencil or pen to mark the wood as most of my planes have some sort of clear finish on them and I don't want that to show through. We did learn a lot of tricks from building from those old printwood kits. I can remember a few of the die smashed kits I built, and wished they had been printwood. It would have saved me from making new parts that should have worked from the kit.

[Keith Spriggs]

Very interesting article. Thanks for posting. I started with the Comet kits. Cutting out the parts was always a challenge especially with only a single edge razor blade. The part I dreaded was cutting the 1/16 inch square notches especially the ones that ran with the grain. The kits taught me patience, persistence, that my model never looked as good as the picture and they never flew like I expected. I guess that is really quite a lot to learn for a dime.

I remember the first kit that I ever got that was actually "die cut" as opposed to being die mashed. It was a Carl Goldberg kit. I recently built a Brodak 38 Special. They take die cutting to a new level.

[EddyR]

The author Bob Hatschek I new many years ago. He was a world class free flight guy and may have been on one or more of the USA world teams. He built wakefield models and gliders.I competed against him at the several team trial's. Last I new he was still alive but he was older than me and I am 68 in a month.He was one of the greatest unlimited rubber powered model builders in the world.
Ed