I was going through a phase this weekend where I played around with some WWII plane designs. I’d done the Zero earlier and had fun with it so decided to make some more. The process is pretty simple and straight forward. I look for blueprints online of interesting aircraft and then trace the side profile in and the wings from the top profile.
I had fun adding the symbols to the wings and fuselages so they’d be easier to identify and tried to stick with some distinctive/famous aircraft. The first one I’d done was the Zero.
I also worked up a B-17 which was a bit more ambitious of a project, but I wanted to get some outboard engines and additional dimensionality from those.
It looked great on the first cut, but then I realized I had a problem wit the design because the slot for the wing was sized for the center of it, but with the engines along the way it was too wide to fit through. So I had to add a cut down the middle that I could hold together with the body after assembly. A little dovetail did fine for this.
Is it possible to mark those patterns on the wings instead of cutting them on cardboard? Or is the lowest GF setting too strong for cardboard so that it slices through?
Which leads to the question - what is the LOWEST setting (in terms of watts) that the GF could be set to? @dan?
Sadly, the weight is too light for good flying. Maybe with some added weight in the nose or something they might fly a bit, but I think they look best with some fishing line hanging from the ceiling so far
There used to be airplane kits similar to these that were sold. I think they were made of balsa and had colored designs printed on them. The propellers were plastic and the clips that attached them to the planes were slightly weighted, and they flew pretty well!
I have a stack on thin balsa wood that I bought to use as a bed for 3D printing PLA on. I only used one sheet before moving on to better things: blue masking tape, glass and PEI. I think it should laser cut well but I can’t think of anything to make with it apart from aeroplanes like these.
Very cool! I have a book on Famous Fighters of WWII published in the UK (1960) that has profile and top/bottom photos of around 17 different fighters from that era. Let me know if there is one in particular of that vintage that you haven’t found yet and I can scan it for you.
