What's the best (in an economical fashion) manner of producing a kit from a set of plans? Years ago I scratch built a 1/2a Sukhoi from some Model Airplane News plans and I built one of Alvin's Combat Avengers as well, and for those I simply laid the plans over some balsa and poked pin holes following the outline of the ribs and formers to create a cutting guide. If I wanted a more "professional" parts production, what would y'all suggest?

Here are some ideas, Mr. Mike.

Cut the parts from the plans.
Glue or doubble sided sticky tape the plan parts on some thin durrable material, like thin soft metal that can be easily cut or formica or some kind of sheet plastic.
Then cut out the template material according to the glued/stuck on plan part.

What you wind up with is a copy of the part that is tuff for repeated use and thick enough for tracing around without distorting and getting exact copy of part.
Use these templates to trace out parts on balsa sheet for cutting or you can even just hold the template down on material real good and cut balsa directly around template.

Tip for cutting wing ribs to get them all exactly same:
Stack balsa sheet material and pin them so they will not shift and trace outline of rib on top sheet and cut the stack out on a band/scroll saw. When done, you have a stack of ribs all ready to go and all the same. This works on wing with constant cord where all ribs are same size/shape.

For a tapered wing where every rib going from wing root to tip is different, do this.
Stack balsa sheet, Trace root rib on stack and then trace tip rib on other side of stack.
Then saw, sand, rasp, file, or whatever till you get a tapered stack of ribs progressing in shape from root to tip size.
Do this twice to get a stack of ribs for each wing half.


Or you can do this:
Cut the part out of plan and just pin it to balsa with at least a couple of pins and carefully trace around it.

Here is an old trick if you can still find some carbon paper (the stuff we used to put between pieces of paper to type multiple copies at same time) or something similar.
Have a sheet of carbon paper between plan and balsa sheet, then being carefull not let plan slip/shift, trace over plan just hard enough to make carbon paper transfer line to the balsa, then cut out part from transferred outline.
This works well for not harming your plan.

About all I can think of for cheapie way out.
Now if we threw some money at it. Send plans to American Kit Cutters and they will send back your plan and a custom cut kit/s.

Hope helps, Mike.

Scratch building is great :dance:
I agree with alvin.....wing ribs suck! I use his method of cutting them all at once, using aluminium patterns on both ends. It really speeds it up and relieves alot of headaches. By the way be carefull of the balsa you select, some parts need lite balsa and some need the heavier stuff...you can spend alot of time digging through the case at hobbytown to find the right kind.

The best way is to contact a Kit cutter. They use lazers that will cut your kit for you, they have top grade balsa, and they have many plans already in there inventory.