I need your help with this question about short kits

[Mike Griffin]

There has been quite a bit of buzz about short kits on the forums recently so I need some help from you all.

What do you consider a short kit?  What parts do you think should be in a short kit?  I am not looking for an answer like "everything but the sticks and sheeting" or "just the laser cut parts".  That is to ambiguous.  What I am looking for is specifics.

For example if I am going to offer a short kit of a full body fuselage plane would you say, "Ribs, doublers and fuselage sides".

If it were a profile would you say "Fuselage, doublers and ribs".

There is no right or wrong answer with this.  It is simply an information gathering mission.

So if you would, take a couple of minutes and post your thoughts and It will be greatly appreciated by this cottage kit maker and by others I am sure.

Mike

[Bill Little]

HI Mike,

In *my* eye, the short kit should have the ribs, fuse sides and ply formers/doublers.  The critical and harder to cut parts, in other words.

Bill

[john e. holliday]

As Bill said.   

[Tim Wescott]

And it's a judgment call, when all is said and done.  You could put a set of foam wing cores, a nice fiberglass cowl, a set of wheel pants and a canopy molding in a box, call it a "short kit" and I'd be happy if I bought it -- but then, I scratch build nearly everything, so there aren't many wood parts I would call "hard to cut out" (slow maybe, but not hard).

For an all-wood kit I'd go with what's been suggested -- all the hard to cut out parts, i.e. ribs & formers.  Then let me agonize over what weights & grains to choose for sheeting and fuse sides and what not.

[Balsa Butcher]

Short answer: ribs and a set of plans. More Detailed: Ribs, fuselage formers, canopy if unique, LG would be nice. Acceptable to leave out fuselage sides. They are easy to cut but due to length, expensive to ship.  

Addendum: Good to ask for input but after thinking about it, I think a short kit is whatever the kit manufacturer deems it to be. Regardless what that is, not everyone will agree with the choices that are made. 

[John Hammonds]

Hi Mike,
 First off, many thanks for taking the whole short kit thing seriously.  Still being new to this I can't argue that I have hoards of strip and sheet  I can use for spars, fuselage sides and the like. For me it purely comes down to giving as high a proportion of my cash to you and as little as possible to everyone else in the logistics chain.

So short answer.. How ever much of the model you can get in a box where the overall dimensions do not total more than 900mm and the maximum length of the longest side is no more than 600mm. That's around ~35" where the maximum length of any one side is ~23.5". Exceed that and (At least for the UK international postal service) the shipping cost almost trebles.  Not sure how that stacks up for US based international postage rates.

Other than that, what Pete says above. Plan and Ribs are a must have, Canopy and Cowl (If built up fuselage and parts are specific to the airframe). Formers (Again if a built up fuselage). Fuselage doublers. Although electric I'm not adverse to a nice bit of Maple.  , Always useful for LG mountings if not needed for engine bearers.  Lower down the pecking order I guess I would put LG, control horns, bellcrank, wheels, spinner. most of those can be purchased locally. Items I would not consider are tank. Most people have their preferred type - and I don't need one, and covering materials, again most have their preferred brand and methods.

You may have opened a can of worms and I would hate to see you spending time you should be devoting to producing kits trying to sort out the best packaging for the (Probably) small proportion of international customers you may have but either way I appreciate the effort.

TTFN
John.
 

[jfv]

I consider a short kit as one that contains all the parts that would be laser cut if a full kit was to be provided.  That's what we include in the R/C short kits that I have designed.  That may include ribs, formers, fuse sides and doublers, as well as filler pieces for items such as tail feathers etc.

[john e. holliday]

Just came back from looking at the short kits I am watching on bay-UK.  The person says they are printed parts on the wood and full size plans.  Looks like we may have come full circle.