If you can remember the childhood of Ralphie, depicted in the film, A Christmas Story, that was quite familiar to me. The simplicity of life, the excitement of a decoder ring or anything out of the ordinary.
My brother Jack was a year older than me and was probably the one who taught me about building model airplanes, not just model airplanes but flying models. We would walk down Jamaica Avenue, some blocks, to Tex Foster's shop which, as you entered, had finished models hanging from the ceiling. I don't know if he sold anything else besides model kits and loose balsa wood strips and blocks, but it was where we would pick out our next projects in kit form.
Ten cents would get you a kit for a 12-inch wingspan plane: Cessna, Stinson-Reliant, Piper Cub, Focke-Wulff, Spirit of St. Louis, and others. We would make our buys and rush home to start the new project. The kit contained: strips of balsa wood, a thin sheet of balsa with the outlines of necessary shapes for wing and fuselage, a propeller, long rubber band, wire hooks to hold the rubber band at the back and to the prop, a vial of viscous glue, a sheet of thin rice paper to cover the surfaces, and of course--the plans.
On hand you were expected to supply your own straight pins to hold pieces to the plans while the glue dried, and a single-edge razor blade for cutting out the wing ribs and rounded tips of wings, rudder, and elevator, as well as the strips for forming the skeleton of the plane.
Once home, I would feverishly go to our room and pin the plan to a flat board, probably corrugated cardboard so I could push pins into it, and get to work. Next, I cut out all the parts from the balsa sheet. Long balsa strips were pinned in place on the plan and connected with little dabs of glue. (Naturally a good deal of glue attached itself to fingertips forming a shiny surface. Had we known it, we could have removed with nail-polish remover, since it too was acetone-based.)
As each assembly was dried, I removed it from the plan. The fuselage required two sides to be constructed and then pieced together with cross pieces and rounded formers if called for. The wing was a single unit as were the rudder and elevator. Gradually the whole skeleton grew into a unit lacework of balsa which now required covering with the provided paper. Piece by piece, the paper was glued to the outside of the plane.
We would work for hours after school and sometimes even on the weekend until interrupted; "Dinner is ready," "Have you done your homework?" "Time for bed."
When it was all trimmed and lightly sanded, water was gently brushed onto all the paper surfaces and allowed to dry, shrinking to a taut surface, provided no wrinkles had been allowed to form.
Finally, after hours and days of delicate laboring, the plane was ready to try out. First the prop, now connected by rubber band to a hook at the rear of the fuselage, had to be wound just the right number of times to tighten the band enough to make it whirr for the few seconds required to make it actually fly! But, first, you had to test its glide over a soft surface (a bed would do) and balance it with judicious weight fore or aft.
Then, the acid test: wind it up and launch it by hand. Oh, the wonder of it as it wobbled through the air; the thrill, the power--and frequently the awkward landing which might snap a wing or rudder. Back to the room to see what repairs were possible.
Of course, Tex Foster also sold 25-cent kits for models which had a wingspan of 2 feet or so. These were sturdier and more likely to fly better and with less accident-prone-ness. But, we seldom could afford the upgrade.
P.S. Feel free to add your own remembrances and pass it on.
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