Stretching your building dollars!

Hello fellow Flite Test junkies! This my first article so feel free to comment good and bad. That is how we all get better at this stuff.

As we are well aware this hobby can be as expensive as we make it. In an effort to help stretch my hobby budget I have come up with a few small ideas that have saved me a few dollars here and there. 

My first tip is workbench protection. Selfhealing cutting mats are fantastic.....but fantastic comes with a price. I needed some masonite for another project I was working on so I bought an extra sheet. It can be purcahsed at any home improvement store. There are a few different types. The one with the white shiny coating on one side works the best. It reflects the light on my work bench well and also allows the hot glue to peel loose. it is still a good idea to use a stripe or two of clear packing tape under glue joints with a lot of squeeze out. the razor saw in my picture is what I use to remove the globs of hot glue that get stuck to the board. a couple sideways swipes and the board is free of hot glue worts. At about $8.00 for a four foot by eight foot sheet it is a very economical form of workbench protection. when it gets chewed up send it to the rubbish bin and slide a new piece in. A fine tooth wood saw will cut it, but I just use a utility knife to score the brown side and then crack it. Finish the cut on the white side with the utility knife and you are all set. 

My next idea is a way to extend the useful life of number 11 X-acto blades. One blade will usually last me through one complete aircraft cutout. If you look at your blade when you are done it is possible to see where the friction of the foamboard has begun to remove blade material and dull it. Only the upper half is worn because the rest of the blade has been unused.

********************SAFETY WARNING****************

IF YOU ARE GOING TO ATTEMPT THIS METHOD SAFETY GLASSES ARE A MUST!!!!

I use a pair of linemans' pliers and break the upper half of the blade off and it is good for another kit cutout. It is absolutely essential that safety procedures be followed to do this. 

1. Wear your safety glasses! This cannot be stressed enough

2. Lay the knife with the blade in it on the bench. It cant fall and cut someone if it is already down. 

3.Use you pliers to hold the blade where you intend to break it.

4.Lay a towel over the entire operation just to help contatin any fragmentation.

5. Rotate the pliers upward until the blade snaps. The idea is that if anything does fragment it goes away from you not towards. 

The younger readers should absolutely have help for this method. The cool part is that it turns 100 blades into 200. I have been using this method for a while and have not had any exploding blades or other issues. 

My next tip is born of necessity rather than frugality.There are no hobby shops close enough to jump in the car get to quickly. When I was building the FT Speedster I needed wire for landing gear. Once again the home improvement store turned up my solution. A three foot piece of 1/8 inch steel welding rod is about $2.00 . works very well. The same linemans pliers that use to for the X-acto trick work great for this as well.

I am fairly certain my last suggestion had already been done a million times before but I figured it wouldn't hurt to mention it. Instead of using white poster board I use colored poster board. I let the kids pick the colors. it works out well for all of us. They get the color they want on their airplanes, and I get the contrast to help maintain orientation. The other thing I use to add marking is sharpie markers. The black stripes aren't tape they are sharpie. Go easy and dont try to color through the paper and they will work great. 

In closing I would like to thank all of the folks here at flight test and all of the guys out at the flying fields bringing the new generation into the hobby. It only takes a few minutes of attention from a patient mentor to create the next r/c addict.