Fresh off the farm Babe Bees

That cleaned up very nicely! Great Job! I'll need to dig up some pictures of my barn find Babe Bees, I always like finding the rough ones to clean up and get running again.

George, that P-47 flies better than it should. It really has a spot in my heart. I built almost every beginner's Sterling kit made with the exception of the Thunderjet which never seemed to come available. I have only 4 left from my early days. The Shoestring, P-51, and a Spitfire and my P-47. The P-47 without landing gear just works. I learned inverted flight flying that plane using a Babe Bee. I would fly it inverted until the engine would sag a bit and upright and go again. It was a fun flying plane. I smashed it so many times and glued it back together so much I don't think there's any balsa left in the glue. The closest performance I achieved to it was the Spitfire. The Shoestring is horrific but it would make a good racing candidate. Glad to see that Bee has a home. Ken

Ken Cook wrote:George, that P-47 flies better than it should. It really has a spot in my heart. I built almost every beginner's Sterling kit made with the exception of the Thunderjet which never seemed to come available. I have only 4 left from my early days. The Shoestring, P-51, and a Spitfire and my P-47. The P-47 without landing gear just works. I learned inverted flight flying that plane using a Babe Bee. I would fly it inverted until the engine would sag a bit and upright and go again. It was a fun  flying plane. I smashed it so many times and glued it back together so much I don't think there's any balsa left in the glue. The closest performance I achieved to it was the Spitfire. The Shoestring is horrific but it would make a good racing candidate. Glad to see that Bee has a home. Ken

Thanks, Ron and Admin for the kind comments. Thanks, Ken for sharing your experiences.

The P-47 was left in its raw assembled balsa state. I redid the elevator hinge, it was too stiff using the thicker cloth. My son got a little carried away with the glue. Since I don't have decals, I was thinking of painting and marking it as either UK or Australian version. (Roundels are easier to mimic.)

Out of the Sterling Beginners, I have an unassembled F6F Hellcat. I downloaded plans of the Eindecker. This is the one that taught me how to fly CL. I crashed it numerous times learning.

Balsa is more tolerant of crashes than the Cox RTF's 40 - 50 years ago. Prior to it, I had several one shot flights with the RTF's. Hawaii has an almost constant 15 mph Trade Winds breeze. The modified Clark-Y or molded with undercamber was not neutral in winds and had a tendecy to climb into the wind and fall with the wind.

I bought a brand new Cox WW-II Stinson L-5 Sentinel observation plane. It was a sight to behold in its shiny olive drab molded plastic, clear windows and yellow U.S. ARMY silkscreen painted wing and U.S.A.A.C. decals. This was with the wages I earned after high school classes working on a poultry farm. A friend helped me. First flight, I had made the traditional half circle where the 15 mph sea breeze caught the wing. Up she went almost overhead in a very wide inside loop with a WHAM! Plastic shattered into many pieces with a glory worthy of an NTSB investigation. Now I had a Cox 290 donor engine. It seems I was not the only one as many a child experienced similar fates. I think this is why the CL fliers more or less opine that these plastic RTF's were a good reason why CL never caught on like it should with young fliers.

Magical transformation. Like Timex, takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin'.

Beautiful restoration.
Glad to see this old gal singing again.
Bob

Thanks dckrsn and rsv1cox. Yes, it was a great feeling when she fired up, I tweaked the needle and she sang once again. It would be even more neat to hear it sing at the end of 30' lines making successful laps again.

Hi George, Great job on the restoration. I have a special place in my heart for the Babe Bee.. and every time I see someone here take one from a neglected state.. to a "diamond" it makes me smile.

Great gift idea in the P47. My dad built me a gorgeous little Carl Goldberg "Swordsman-18" when I was a kid.. with a shiny Babe Bee mounted. The fuse was black.. and the wing/tail-feathers were a med./dk. green color. He applied all the decals that came with the kit. I remember my mom complaining about the smell of dope.. and an airplane being built on her dining room table.

George, making a set of decals isn't too hard.. and there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to have the exact ones you want for the P47. My wife helped me with some recently. One thing I learned.. is that certain images that you may find on the interweb.. have a grey/white checkerboard background. This is area will not print.. or should I say; won't print any background color on "clear" adhesive print media. There are also free photo editing websites.. that allow you to upload your photo, re-size it, and select the background.. and make it a "non-print" area.

Once I was satisfied with my artwork.. I obtained laser-printable full-sheet matte-clear adhesive shipping labels. I felt that they'd be more resistant to "bleeding" when final fuel-proofing was done. I had no problems with TF LustreKote.

These are stickers.. and not decals.. but I didn't care. My model's "image" had been greatly enhanced.