Cloning a kit

[john e. holliday]

I have done this several times during my tenure of building kits.  I am working on a kit now that should be a blast.   I will reveal the kit when done.   Big advantage is I can do spars, leading and trailing edges in one peice.  No splicing,  Of course I do the usual to them like adjustable lead outs and wing tip weight box.  Also I like the different ways guys do a design. Once templates are made I can do more of the design.

[Chuck Matheny]

OK Doc....If you name the brand would that be too big of a clue...?
Another question...is that blood on your cutting board...?

[Dave Rigotti]

I'll assume this is a no longer produced kit by anyone?

I have done this several times during my tenure of building kits.  I am working on a kit now that should be a blast.   I will reveal the kit when done.   Big advantage is I can do spars, leading and trailing edges in one peice.  No splicing,  Of course I do the usual to them like adjustable lead outs and wing tip weight box.  Also I like the different ways guys do a design. Once templates are made I can do more of the design.

[Dennis Toth]

If you are doing this for yourself and not to sell to others doesn't matter if it is still produced. Make as many as you want. If friends want to build the ship and barrow your templates to build one same thing as long as you don't charge them for the templates, build away. Should not be a issue. Windy had templates for the Cardinal and could bang out the basic parts in a day or so. I have used the kit parts as templates for take-a-part ships that I built a couple different fuses for to use different power plants in.

Best,    DennisT

[Dave Rigotti]

Yet we all lament when a kit supplier goes out of business or raises prices to stay in business........I sell one kit and 10 get made from it......Shame.

[john e. holliday]

No that is not blood on the cutting board which is a peice of light ply.  I have a glass sheet taped to a foam sheet for long cuts.  Now you can rack your brain as this a Veron kit from across the ocean.

[Paul Smith]

If buy one kit and make several copies I have supported the kit maker more than the person who downloads the plans for nothing.

Plus, the kits I buy & copy are from long-gone kit makers.

[Chuck Matheny]

No that is not blood on the cutting board which is a peice of light ply.  I have a glass sheet taped to a foam sheet for long cuts.  Now you can rack your brain as this a Veron kit from across the ocean.

Well I had to google DK Veron  and doing so opened up a whole new world of model designs I'd never seen.
Don't get defensive about the blood, Doc.
hydrogen peroxide will make it disappear....

I wonder how many aspiring "model designers" got started by buying kits as educational tools..then ended up building their own modified versions that are actually 95% copies of  the original work that somebody else did...?
Where do we draw the line...?
I've never tried to sell someone else's work...but I have saved the plans to many commercial kits that I've bought and in some cases built what I thought would be improved versions of the original.

[Steve Helmick]

IMO, if the kit manufacturer had sold a decent product, they probably wouldn't have gone Tango Utah. However, I also understand that businesses take a lot of work and long hours, so it's entirely possible that some owners just got to a point in their lives where they just lost their enthusiasm. Lives change, markets change, supply costs change, and all that stuff can enter into a company's closure.

A lot of those old kits have been saved by enthusiasts doing CAD drawings off the original kit or plan. Is it better to not build from those plans, or let those old designs vanish? If you buy a plan from AMA's plan service, do you think AMA will send a check to the late designer's family? For the record, if I was to build a Bob Hunt "Caprice", I'd get the plans from him, but would likely change the shape of the fin...and I'd still write Caprice on the wing and still enter it in Classic, because it'd be completely legal to do so.  Steve

[John Hammonds]

No that is not blood on the cutting board which is a peice of light ply.  I have a glass sheet taped to a foam sheet for long cuts.  Now you can rack your brain as this a Veron kit from across the ocean.

Reminds me of the Combateer, if so they are a great model. 

TTFN
John.

[john e. holliday]

+John H you nailed it.   

[john e. holliday]

Got to the shop early today.  Wing tips sanded and fuselage mounted on the wing.  Hinged the stab/elevator while glue was drying..