It is a Guillow's model kit that my dad put together for me when I was 5 years old in 1971 in Boulder Colorado that sparked my love of model building. This is where it all began for me. Guillow's has a special place in my heart. My dad built the Focke Wulf Fw190. I was there as he showed me step by step how to put it together. I studied the box art for hours. To this day I know the plans, and remember his instructions of why and how. He showed me how to take a two dimensional drawing and create a 3D model. The smell of the glue and dope. I smell it now. My dad, who is 94 years old and a WWII veteran is still alive and well in Las Vegas.
I am 69 years old and I remember when I was 5 years old starting building stick and tissue from these kits. Kept my interest kept me with something to do seed out of trouble and I still build them today. Gave me a love of Aviation. Nothing more rewarding than building one of these things and seeing it fly all by itself. Thank you for keeping the business going.
Guillow’s kits were what we “serious” modelers cut our teeth on, and later picked our teeth with, because after that eventual unsuccessful flight, there were plenty of toothpicks available...
Started out building plastic kits as a kid, with my dad, in the late 60’s . He saw that I was skilled enough to graduate to stick & tissue planes by the early 70’s , when I built my first Guillows planes & I subsequently built many of them (some say I’ve built too many model airplanes) ! Thirty years later, I introduced Guillows kits to my own son - I remember how excited he was to see the actual planes that we were building on display & actually flying at an airport / air museum near our home - he was able to identify all them because at the age of six he had already memorized the Guillows catalog ! I hope Guillows lasts for future generations ! True Americana !!!
I’ve been building Guillows models since I was about 12 in the early 1960’s. I’m now 73 and I have about 15 of Guillow’s models that I’ll be building now that I’m retired! Loved them as a kid and still love them as an old man. Wish they would bring back some of the older model such as the Banshee and any other older jets they might have produced way back when. Would buy them in a heartbeat!!
Wow. I am 59 years old in 2023 and you just transported me back to 1970 when I was 6 years old building a Guillows Camel Sopwith Biplane that i got for Christmas. I have built many of these stick and paper planes but eventually graduated to the far bigger and more complex RC models. I think I'm gonna build me another Guillows Sopwith. (for old times sake) Thank you for the memories.
I have no idea how many of these kits I've built in my lifetime. I'm pretty sure my first one was a cub in the mid '60's. My last one was about four years ago, a Stuka. I build Stuart steam engines, scratch built RC cars and planes, boats, and motorcycles, and currently building a hot rod to cruise the streets. But when one of these planes catches my eye, everything comes to a halt. They're like therapy, takes me back to my childhood.
I built a Guillow Piper Cub, bought the tissue and dope at our local Sears store. 10 - 15 years later, I was buying software for my Commodore 64 at that same Sears store. Amazing g to see Guillow still prospering while Sears is a shadow of its former self.
Over the years I’ve built Sterling, Comet, Guillows, Dumas stick and tissue models, I find the work both relaxing and rewarding! I am 69 yo and still at it!
I've built many a guillows kit. I like to combine scratch building into full scale cockpits in their WWI series. But my best memories with them are spending time with my Dad the last 3 years of his life (he had cancer) We ruined mom's kitchen table with dope, sanding sealer and glue. Dad built the Corsair, DC-3,P-51, P-47, PT-17, SE5A, B-25 and started the B-17. I still have the B-17 and I treasure it greatly. Oneday soon I will finish it and still get to build models with my Dad 1 last time. He passed away 11/25/15 Miss ya Pop.
I can't even guess how many hand tossed and rubber band gliders I have bought and for my kids and grand kids. Stick and tissue is true modeling. Thank you MR G
i am 65 now and STILL put these kits together! I have started my son and grandsons on this hobby as well, they have put Guillow's planes together, usually with my supervision. Funny thing is they prefer to leave the tissue non painted, they prefer to see the structure peaking through! I have 6 more down stairs to build, and i now plan to build some for RC conversion! Great video!
you probably dont care at all but does anybody know a tool to log back into an instagram account..? I somehow forgot my login password. I appreciate any help you can offer me!
@Timothy Ari I really appreciate your reply. I found the site through google and im in the hacking process now. I see it takes a while so I will reply here later when my account password hopefully is recovered.
I loved every second of flying the balsa wood gliders and rubber-propelled models in 1966-ish. To this day, every time I remember our house and its huge back yard in the Canal Zone, Panama, the models are there, in the delightfully fond memory. That place and time were Paradise on Earth for a child. Even the smell of balsa wood comes to mind, when I remember the place. I hope I can keep those dearest memories, formed almost 60 years ago, till my last moments.
I loved those jet plane gliders. I was so happy to find that they were still being made today, and that my son could have the same experience. Thanks for another great video!
Bought many of their gliders as a kid which led to gasoline powered models and finally to a pilots license and the real thing. A great hobby inspired by those first hand launched gliders.
Started with some of the smaller Guillow models, then started a B-17, with a carved balsa fuse and stick and paper wings, elevators and stab back in the early '60's. The paper was going to be balsa sheets, but a 4-year stint in the US Coast Guard saw the demise of the project. Because life happens, I didn't get back into it until I had to take early medical retirement, and I once again found an all-wood and paper Guillow B-17, and I built it and covered it all in ¹/³² balsa sheet, all driven by 4 electric motors. It has full flaps, ailerons, rudder, and elevators. It came out better than even I ever expected!! She's finished in 8th USAAF colors. Wish I could attach a picture!
Can't imagine my life without Guillow's in it right up to today with grandchildren. I remember the first time I went from the Jetfire to rubberband prop takeoff and landings. It was a whole 'nother level as we would say.
In the late sixties my Pop (who was an aircraft Engineer) introduced me and my brother to model airplanes that flew - and now we are in the era of DRONE WARFARE as surely as Robt. A. Heinlein foresaw what space travel and societies might look like in the future. That future is HERE now But it is a perilous place, this future. So many rely on things that they have no idea how to produce or repair themselves. Back then, the Boy Scouts of America taught survival skills and also creative crafts of all sorts.... I have no idea now at this point in my life how much practical experience in aircraft (models - but still) and light weight construction, insights into ways and means of fabrication at a grass roots level, awareness of materials and structures that I might never have been shown. I think I owe a huge debt of gratitude to "PAUL", may he have wings of his own now - and THANK YOU
I am 61 - My dentist used to give these to the kid patients after the appointment, with pencils and other goodies, back in the 60s, so Guillows were my first airplanes, before 10 years old, and it lead me to build plastic scale models later, then on to a mechanical engineering career later.
As a 14-16 year old in the 60's, I think I built a dozen or more Guillows stick and tissue kits. all were flown either rubber powered or as I got more allowance with a cox pee wee 010 glow engine. few lasted more than a couple of flights, but it taught me how to build models and launched a life long love of model aviation.
I'm really pleased to see they're still in business. I hope they continue inspiring young uns to build and create. They're the perfect thing these days to keep em busy during the pandemic.
These are some of the greatest kits made. Unfortunately hobby stores are quickly becoming extinct. There are only a few remaining in the large city that I live in. I am a retired pilot and tho I build more plastic kits than wood I still find it a great way to keep my hand in aviation. Unfortunately the younger generation have little or no interest in putting the time into building theses beautiful kits.
That video was fun! Balsa and glue, tissue and dope - what a vital part of growing up and getting old. Nothing beats opening a kit-box and smelling fresh-cut balsa.
Fascinating. I can't recall how many Jet Fires my brothers and I stranded on top of neighborhood houses (including our own), in trees or just generally wore out; this was all throughout the 1960s. As a side note, the wind took my Cox helicopter and put it in the tallest reaches of a tree bordering the local field where my brothers and I would fly it. One of my brothers got it back over forty years later in 2012. I didn't get to see it but heard about it.
As a kid I built both Guillows and Comet models when Guillows went to die cut parts Comet was done in my opinion Comet did go to die cut parts after a while to this day I have about a hundred balsa kits most of them Guillows in addition to Dumas kits that are high quality and have some cool airplanes such as the Boeing P-26 and the Beech Stagger wing and Be Gee racer I have always liked these models as they use the same construction as the real planes , and teaches you weight and balance and correct rigging .
I spotted the kits by accident in a ”gadget” shop one summer in the 90s. Thought the price was wrong by a factor of 5. ”How can it be so cheap?” Started with the Hurricane. Have been longing for those days ever since, started the rc hobby again a couple years ago. I love how the kits look the same.
100% loved these models. My Grandpa was a WWI aviator - US Army flying Spads and Nieuport biplanes primarily. What a great learning experience it was to see physics in action - model planes gliding through the air. Launched by my own hands - and my grandfather's hands next to me. Cherished those days.
3:53 Our family went through many of these simple glider and rubber band toys back in the '60 to '65 period. Dad built one of their 4 foot wingspan gliders in about '63... it lasted one afternoon of flying, then was stuck 60 feet up in a tree where it rotted till winter.
I still remember to this day the heart rending "skwatch" of my little Guillows glider as my father's car ran over it in our driveway back in 1971. Love your Gerry Anderson U.F.O. reference at the end. That should be your next video topic, all the Anderson related models i.e. UFO, Space 1999, Thunderbirds, Stingray, etc.
I was living in a room and kitchen "A wee flat" and my guillows builds sold in the weekend market so it payed for the hobby and sum still love all kind of model building
Funny, I still the Guillow brand rubber band powered gliders for sale in small stores, and I can’t help it but I‘m still a sucker and I buy one and play with it. It doesn’t last long, but it’s worth the childhood memories it brings back.
I just finished the Cessna 172 making it radio control. The new park motors, receiver's, micro servos are perfectfor these old models. I was given the model and it was pre laser cut which brought back a lot of my building skills. My dad built a slew of these planes back in the 60s and I can remember all of them. They were all built with ambroid glue and tissue. You could only assemble a few parts every night because you had to wait a day for the glue to harden. Today you can build a fuselage and wings in one night with these amazing CA glues. I hope they continue to manufacture these great planes for years to come. I also hope there is a revival of scratch building. Foam don't get you home.
I used to fly mine until I got tired of chasing planes that crashed and had to be repaired... now I cover my models with extremely thin balsa sheets to form the skin of my planes, puttied and sanded smooth. Then covered in the tissue (to seal in the wood grain and create a smooth surface) and then I heavily gloss it all, sand smooth and then paint in the aircraft's final color. A lot of work but the results show... and obviously non flying too... but Guillows, when done this way, make into pretty impressive and realistic looking large scale models..
I’ve “attempted” to build the smaller P-51 by them. Didn’t have much luck guess I’m too much of a plastic modeler. I did have success with the little gliders as a child at least! My father pretty much grew up with them as he grew up after WWII. Two rooms in our house had the ceilings covered in Guillows models. His favorite ones by them were the B-29, FW-190 and P-47.
I used to love the 10 cent gliders with the plastic pilot/canopy insert in the early 60s. The TG&Y sold one balsa plane for 5 cents that had a plastic piece that was pushed on top of the fuselage and the two wings pushed into it. Didn't have much money as a kid, so the 10 cent Guillow was usually out of my reach, financially.
In the late 50s-mid 60s, I built over a dozen of both Comet (my favorite) and Guillow kits. None of them flew well, but that besides the point: building and imagining a real plane. Stick n tissue was the way to go. Today, I still have an interest in these types of models.
I was an avid flying model builder. Guillow kits are on the heavy side and require careful balance on all axis'. The best flying for me was the Sopwith Camel done with rubber power. 100 Yard flights are possible. Thanks for the video.
I would have to say the two greatest inventions that have ever happened to stick and tissue model building is laser cut parts (you all know that those old diecast cut parts were horrible) and the other huge leap forward was the addition of vacuum-formed plastic cowlings, wheel skirts, fairings, and air scoops this made the models more realistic, easier to build, because you didn't have to scratch build those components yourself with Balsa and made the planes lighter...
In 2008 (or thereabouts) Guillows planned to offer laser cut kits for their 500 series models. I did the beta test build for their laser cut Stuka. I have no connection to Guillows other than building and flying their models. It was simply a unique volunteer opportunity and a privilege.
My first balsa kit was a Comet Hell Diver, that had to be cut from printed sheets. Deemed too young (six) for a hobby/exacto knife I scrounged a double edge razor blade from my father and got some pretty painful cuts in the process never finishing the thing. Guillows die cut parts reinspired me and saved me from countless future mutilations.
Built a Guillow’s Cessna 170, 150 and Piper Cherokee in my teens and a Skyraider in more recent years. I loved the variety of their product line. They flew okay but didn’t seem to last beyond a handful of flights. I always had problems with the landing gear being wiped out. I also had their chuck gliders too. Those were fantastic fliers. I wish I had a Guillow’s kit to build right now over the quarantine period.😁
i'm looking at the first guillows kit my grandpa and I built when I was 7, an Aeronica champion 85, the type my grandfather got civil certified on back in the '50s. i'm 23 now and it still has a place on my shelf, bringing fond and fun memories every time I glance in it's direction.
Great Work! I remember in 1959, just 7 years old, my father buying for me and my younger brother, our first Guillows gliders. He assembled them, for us and we flew them in the Safeway parking lot, in The Bronx. I loved flying them. Didn't build too many of them, until the early 1980s. Building an FW 190, and powering with a CO2 motor. That was great! I also built a couple of Sterling WW1 models, too. Id like to see a story about Sterling models, also. Great Work! Thanks for sharing.
I loved to build models and one of my favorite durable planes was and is the hand launched glider kits that had the actual air foil on the wings. How they caught the air and circled when they hit a thermal was great. Most importantly was their durability. The glider that I purchased in the early 70s is still with me and I occassionally toss it around in my fields. The stick and paper kits were too labor intensive to have them sacrificed in a crash. I have a partially bult Comet Piper cub kit that I picked up at a garage sale that is awatiing assembly. I may not paper it so I can marvel at the beauty of its wood skeleton.
I spent a small fortune on those slide-together kits. With and without the rubber band prop. Played with them until they couldn't be played with any more. I tried the stick and paper kits a few times but I always ruined the plastic pieces. I could never cut them out of the sheet without having the overwhelming urge to trim them...and it's not quite even so trim it again. And again. And again. And now it's ruined...sigh...
I remember when I was a kid my Dad bought the Guillows "Javelin" which we built and flew together. The kit cost about a dollar at the time in the early 1970s. Now the kits are so insanely priced, they are absolutely unaffordable, and their wood was always too heavy anyway. The Javelin now costs about $50, their simple chuck gliders which I used to get for a quarter as a kid are now upwards of $30 in Canada, and that's just crazy. Best way to build a Guillows kit is to save the plans and toss the wood, use new lighter balsa. BTW love the use of the UFO theme at the end.
I don't remember which one, but I built a Guillow's biplane as a child in the early sixties. It was a satisfying project that took some time to complete. I just do see people today having the attention span needed to build a Guillow's model plane. We don't do anymore, we just watch.
Great video Max! im really liking your model company videos and all of the great info in them. it takes me back to riding my bicycle 9 miles round trip to the model store to spend lawn mowing and chore money on a new model. i remember in the late 70's saying " someday im going to convert these models to RC" and being laughed at and hearing " someday but not in your lifetime!" well i have lived the dream and built many many great flying guillows and other stick and tissue rc conversions. what a great world of technology we live in and to have seen it develop to where it is now! im glad you and many others have been able to experience these wonderfull models and and to feel that peace and accomplishment that comes with building and flying them =D
I've only finished ONE balsa & tissue kit. Don't remember now if it was Guillows or Comet but it was a F6F Hellcat. I was about a third of the way through another build when it got wrecked by one of my little brat cousins! Never finished the second one. Maybe now that I'm retired I should find that same kit and build it again!!
I was hoping you did Guillows. Boy did I learn a lot about woodworking and planes building those kits! Thank you for these videos! So many great memories!
I still have a couple of Guillow kits, ca.1960, that I never started. I usually built Comet kits but there were plenty of Guillow's, too. I think those "pine" kits were actually spruce. They kept selling those well into the 50s. As I recall, the sheets with the ribs and formers printed on them were still balsa. It was the strip wood that was spruce. The models were durable but it was a bear cutting the wood with a broken razor blade. That's what we used before we could afford Exacto.
Built my first Stick and Tissue plane when I was in 5th Grade. A Comet PT-19. It looked like Hell, (glued the tissue onto the balsa framework! had no idea I should have used Dope. Directions are what ya read to find out what ya did wrong?), but the silly thing flew. Bought my first Guillow's shortly after that. This would have been 1967-68. I very much enjoyed the way Guillow had us build the Fuselage. After building just one, and having it look so realistic once the tissue was on, I built other Comet models but always bought more Guillow models, with the FW 190 being my favorite. Intended to purchase a P-47 Thunderbolt, but made it into my 20's, discovered Girl's and Life crowded out model building. Times have sure changed though. For years now, I cannot remember any children building a Plastic Model, let alone a Stick and Tissue style. I'm not sure if kids today know how to change a Bike Tire if it goes flat! Do that many kids today even own Bikes? I could hope that some kids some where still have an interest in building models of Cars, Planes, Boats, Ships, etc. Judging by the lack of such models being in stores, I'm guessing the younger generations are sitting in front of a Computer Screen instead of pinning down some Wax Paper over a set of Plans of a Stick and Tissue P-40 War Hawk. A kid today might ask, Who is War Hawk? Sounds Cool; Grandpa, is there an Action Figure we can buy?
Thanks again.I'm 66 and I rember when I always went to the 5 & dime to buy my model cars & toy cars & balsa airplanes .with rubber band & prop to fly the plane ✈ that was the good old days.👌 👌 and my match box cars .witch I still have.
Guillows had a nice line of WW1 aircraft stick and tissue kits in the 1960s. They disappeared in the early 70s, I think. They only have the larger scale now I think.
It was fascinating to learn Paul Guillow's history in aviation--thanks! Nicely done, professional video. My pals and I were flying those Jetfires at 7 and 8 years old, back in 1959. Later, I built the S.E.5A and other kits. Nice job building the Steerman--but not so nice flight, looks like.
I saw the UFO Interceptor box on the wall at 5:40. The UFO theme music was a nice touch. I have the UFO uweeo uweeo sound as my phone's ringtone. I built plenty of balsa wood airplanes in high school some decades ago.
Hola a todos, cuándo tenia unos 15 años más ó menos (59 hoy) armé varios increibles aviones de ésta extraordinaria marca, mi favorito el F. Triplano del barón Rojo Que buenos recuerdos Saludos Isla de Margarita Venezuela
Laser cutting changed the game. Build time reduced and accuracy increased. With CA glue, you can work as fast as you care to and still get a good result.
The Stuka biting the dust clearly had warps. I flew the little one as an r/c conversion and there's a YT video of it on one of my 2 channels, with 1 being created by accident when they made us all "re-register" to post videos. Nice flying model. Still need to fly my larger Guillow's Stuka someday.
I like your SHADOW/UFO music and references! I've always been a Gerry Anderson fan. The Bird Dog was the only balsa aircraft model I made - built it as a regular Cessna 152 (it crashed) Like I said in the Comet video, my brother was much more into that part of the hobby than me. I used mostly used balsa for my HO layout (buildings and other structures) as well as other projects too numerous to mention nor for anyone to be bothered by.
i loved those gliders. A small one was a dime and the larger one was a quarter. Sales tax in Michigan was 4% bumping it to twenty-six cents. Hours of fun though. The beauty of flight! The stick and tissue models took days to build and a single hard landing would do tremendous damage so they were relegated to hanging from the ceiling on a strand of thread. Impressive!
I grew up in Wakefield, Mass just a few blocks away from Guillow's. When I was old enough to go to work I applied for a job there and never heard anything from them. Over the years, I filled out job applications a few times but they never responded. I haven't lived in Massachusetts for over forty years now and I am just months away from retiring, but who knows, if they had hired me all those decades ago, I might still live in my home town.
As a kid, I had several of the simple gliders, like the Jetfire. I had their balsa&tissue F6F Hellcat and Curtiss P-40, and the larger Piper Cub. As an experiment, I built the Hellcat using kitchen aluminum foil instead of tissue. It worked, but was definitely heavier than it needed to be. I remember Guillow's fondly.
Fascinating and professional presentation. I never tackled stick & tissue kits but launched dozens of the .10 cent gliders purchased from the corner Mom ‘n Pop store. Glad I found your treasure trove of modeling history. Thanks! P.S. love the ending montage
I never knew it was pronounced "Gwillows" not "Geelows"... thanks for that! Loved and flew a ton of those, few sucessfully, but had a great time and learned so many skills along the way... Thanks Mr. Guillows!
I loved building Comet and later Guillow kits. It is a favorite of mine after all these years. A lifelong hobby. Really enjoy learning the history of one of my favorite model companies. Thanks for taking the time to make these videos.
I built the Cessna 172 kit and converted it to RC. It flew like crap and I only landed it once without breaking the landing gear. But youre right the fun is in the building.
.You are a very good boy Max. I thank you from my heart for these histories. I made one guillowe a P40 where I was first introduced to dope, this was probably 1960. Slow drying glues and being fairly witless I did not gain a lot of satisfaction when my airfix kits (I am in Australia) gave me more REALISM. Guillowes kits here were as expensive as accurate plastic models, English and American, and all these kits had such great box art that the unrealism of the finished balsa kit, despite its possibilities of flying was for me not part of my ongoing delusions.
3 attempts 3 failures. Something always happened along the build process. I was about 3/4 done on a Corsair and the cat jumped on it and tore it to shreds. Very cool that they are still around.
I’ve heard from many people over the years that they won’t build balsa flying models because after all that effort to build them they crash and are destroyed. Somewhere I have my flight log for my Guillows F24. If I recall, it has over 40 flights with a cumulative flight time of 25 minutes. The model is still flyable today and was built about 25 years ago.
That is correct. Model Airplane building (for models that pretend to fly), is unfortunately, Not for everyone... Many of the sad endings and their accompanying frustation is due to a combination of not having enough knowledge, too high an urgency to fly the just completed model, and in no small way, a wide spread tendency by manufacturers to put insufficient instructions on HOW TO "TRIM" the model BEFORE attempting the first flight... as if adding such crucial instructions were going to hurt the bussiness by scaring away buyers, or if their experience had put a veil of overconfidence that every design "can" truly fly. In that respect, Guillows is somewhat guilty of producing too many too beautiful models that are NOT favourable for being selected to be transformed into good flying models. For example; their non-scale models, that is, models that were not based on a full scale airplane, but were just designed to fly as models, DO indeed fly, and CAN fly well if correcly built and adjusted or "trimmed". The problem with many of the Guillows (and other makes) of flying models that attempt to reproduce real airplanes, is that as the size is reduced, the air molecules do not reduce as well, and that makes the design more critical. Contributing to that, is the addition of relatively heavy plastic parts to help in producing a "scale" looking, like airplane nose cowlings, cockpits and others, adding too much weight for the smallish wing area, and that, unless flown by an expert pilot (either inside the plane) or remotely controlled, there is simply not enough stability in many scale looking low-wing designs, making those very bad flyers! On the contrary, models like one named "Javelin" from Guillows, that is a simple box type fuselage, high mounted wing with double Dihedral, IS very stable and flies PERFECTLY!... But a low wing, INVERTED gull wing Stuka model is tremendously difficult to properly adjust in order to fly, at it has everything agaist it. In conclusion, Guillows models are an example of a model airplane company that took advantage of the intense dreams of many young aviation lovers, and offered as many "scale" models as possible, with the priority put more on appearance, than on favourable flying characteristics. Perhaps the Laser cutting will help with people not patient enough to learn how to use an X-acto on balsawood, but (for the record): Guillows tended always to use the cheapest, heaviest and hardest balsa wood available! And as it is said: "A light model flies more easily, A Straight model flies more correctly, but a heavy and not straight model does not fly at all".
@@alfredomarquez9777 so true. I made plenty os mistakes. It was too heavy and I used too much power.. Here is the build video with a bonus at the end. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-dFmUAKjd2aM.html
It's what you do afterward. High school friend of mine spend a solid year building his first RC gas-powered plane. Took pains, and took pains about the pains, and took pains about those pains. Put it up in the air and flew it right into a tree. Wasn't anything left that even looked like part of a plane. "Sorry, man," I said even as his little brothers guffawed. "Eh," he said, and next thing I knew, he was building another one. Now he's retired from the Air Force and working for Lockheed, pushing GPS satellites around the sky. And when the virus gets to be manageable, he'll go back to traveling around the world taking part in RC glider competitions. Stick to it, is what I'm saying.
I currently have a Guillows FW-190 that I built into an RC airplane. Electric li-po powered with balsa skin. It flies okay but I break it a lot. I also have smaller rubber band powered FW-190 and p-40. I built probably 10 of them as a kid and those 3 as an adult. The joy is definitely in the building.
of the larger 50" models I built many years ago as a kid the Spitfire and the SuperCub. Of course I always began the project with the idea that these would fly somehow - it's a beautiful promise of a stick and tissue model that comes with options as explained in the plans. Something signifigant happened with Guillows and my Dad. He started buying model kits for us to build. Ronald would talk about model airplanes that he and his brothers would build and launch off the roof after lighting on fire which would indicate that there was not a big emphasis on airworthiness. But at the same time they took the time to build the airplane! so a positive. I will revisit that with Ron and let you know what his excellent recall brings to us. Unfortunately I've never actually flown a Guillows model and never really thought it would fly after all the ambrose and hardwood and dope and silk came together. I had something to hang from the ceiling that just looked amazing and it was something I had built myself. So I did go on to build airplanes for Boeing and Northrop and McDonnel Douglas for 35 years but in the back lot of Bell Helicopter had my highly modified electric Goldberg flat-wing flying one vertical J-turn after another. Will post some pics with this one. I do have a 4 piece throw glider with a flat dihedral wing and a metal nose clip for CG and it is embossed with 'BOEING' God bless the Company BTW.
Many summer hours whiled away with neighborhood friends flying those 10-centers! 3 or 4 of us would troop down to "Stroo's 5 and 10 Store" to pick up our planes. Leading edge repairs were made with scotch tape 'til the plane's aerodynamics were gone...so much fun and comradery for one thin dime!
I'm 67 and bought mu first Guillows kit when I was ll. It was the Nieuport 11. Cost $2.98 plus shipping. Right now I'm building the P-51 for control line with the Cox .049. Have built about 2 dozen of their kits.
Thanks maxsmodels for this.. I still have two of the bi-planes balsa wood Spade and a Fokker. Folding wing glider, jetfire , and a rubber band powered,all are the slide kit.. Hours of fun as a kid... I've learned how to properly pronounce their name.. thanks to your interest.. God bless them for building those awesome kits.. who knows how many children they inspired in to aviation..
I love building stick and tissue model kits! it is a very different skill-set than building a plastic model and was fundamental in having the necessary skills to build my cutaway structural models as they are built almost identically to the way you build a stick and tissue rubber band flying modes, I believe something that modern model Builders don't understand is that actually working with wood in many ways is superior to plastic as wood is much more of a malleable shapeable material than styrene plastic and in fact how I manufactured my vacuum-formed plugs is gluing layers of Balsa and then sanding, filling, priming or fiberglassing that Balsa plug until it is a part that you can then vacuum-form plastic over. I learned all of this from building stick and tissue model planes (like Guillows, comet, etc) as the older sticking tissue model kits did not include vacuum-formed Parts like cowlings, early wheel skirts, fillets and fairings and therefore the model builder was expected to be able to create these complex shapes with buildup layers of balsa wood, being able to work with softwoods like basswood or Balsa is a great skill and talent every serious modelbuilder should Endeavor to have, if you have the skills to create shapes out of wood then there is literally no model that you can't scratch build!
I could never manage to build one of those stick and tissue planes when I was a kid, but I did build a Grumman Avenger for my son, and it turned out quite well
I only built one Guillow’s kit. The Fokker DR1 Triplane. Made it to be a gas powered u-controlled but never had the nerve to fly it after all that work.
I built the bird dog kit back in the '60s, and lots of guillow kits as a kid .Currently have an unopened stick & tissue Aeronca Champion, which I bought a couple of years ago, but also built in the summer of 1967, got it on my birthday. Life isn't the same without 'Duco' cement and the smell of modeler's dope in the air..
My father passed away in 1996, but built several models a B29 B24 and a Me109 and I still have them. As kid I dont know how many Gillow gliders brought and got the stuck in the trees. Every week I would walk down to a local candy store Miss Hooks on the Westside of Albuquerque and buy these planes with my weekly allowance. Times were though but as a kid that made me happy and I dreamed about becoming a fighter pilot.
Back in the early 60's, my dad would bring home a kit every few months. Loved that quality time on those frigid winter nights, dreaming of spring and flying said models!
I tried to build a wooden kit when I was a kid ( circa 1959). I don't remember the manufacturer or type of plane but I do recall it looked like a UNFO about half way into it. Unidentified Non Flying Object.
