If you are a beginner to intermediate class flyer, don't get too hung up on this weight thing. You can't just grab a bunch of what you think is light wood and build a world beater right off the bat. You have to learn wood selection, using the right wood for the right part of the model, and build toward a light airplane in every step you take. Sparky has a line where he states that w really good finish begins with the first piece of wood cut, and that is true. You have to have the finished weight in mind right from the start, and a lot of that finished weight is in the finish. When you are at the beginner to intermediate level, it's more important to learn how to built straight, accurate airplanes. There isn't a kit on the market, of any manufacturer, that won't fly OK as it comes from the box with the wood supplied if built straight and accurate. With the fine cottage industry kit makers we have now, we get spoiled by the great quality wood that they use in their kits, because they are aimed at a certain customer who expects that, and they are priced accordingly. Companies like SIG market kits for anyone and everyone, and to keep prices in check, they buy wood in a market where they don't have a lot of choice and wood is cheaper so their kits cost less. It's simple marketing and economics. You can get lucky and get decent wood in a SIG kit, but it's subject to the wood that is available to them to buy. You should have seen the barn siding that was in some manufacturer's kits during some of the alleged "balsa shortages" years ago. I built my Shark Twister profile model using Twister parts, almost every piece of wood that came in the kit. I wanted to make the wing a D tube, so needed to trim the ribs some to allow for that. The wood in the ribs was so hard I could not cut it with an Exacto knife! I had to stack the ribs up and cut them on a band saw. The added wood of the wing sheeting, plus what was needed for increased tail surface sizes, and fuselage length to fit Fancherized Twister numbers, was still only enough to push the weight of the finished airplane in the upper 40 ounce range, 48 or 49 ounces I think, and the airplane flies quite well. There is always questions about the Fancher mods on here, and while they work, they can also tend to send a finished weight up to and over 50 ounces if you are not careful, and most beginner and intermediate modelers are not that skilled at that yet. You should build that Akromaster as it is in the box, and build a duplicate right beside it using the kit parts for a template on contest quality wood to illustrate what I mean. Use the same finish on both models and the same power plants. Let us know what the results are. I think you will find not too much difference between the airplanes, both in finished weight and in how they fly. You are bound to crash one,m so then you will have a back up almost immediately! And notice that that heavier, hard fuselage doesn't shake and twist as easier and that nice, light soft wood fuselage does. To help get the weight down on the harder one, just sand things more, round off and contour things more. Drilling holes in things won't get you what you want and you just may screw up a good fuselage.
Good luck and have fun,
Dan McEntee
Topic: Wood in SIG kits?!? Plane finished (Read 4470 times)
