Okay, I'd admit -- it's not a plastic model, but it is a 1:48 scale wood toy, so it does count! My youngest son Levi has been after me for a few months to build him a wood helicopter, but with temps in Iowa being in single or negative digits and my "workshop" being in the unheated garage, I have taken a pass. Finally, last night, I decided it had been warm enough to give it a shot as the garage was a nice and balmy 40F. So at 8PM, I started the work. First up was getting the template ready. As I am currently working on a 1:48 scale Apache, I decided to use this as the model for Levi's helicopter (hoping he will let the model sit and look pretty). I dug around in my spare wood parts bin and found the perfect sized 2x4 to be the body of the model.
Making some allowances for the flight characteristics of a 5-year-old, I was ready to cut away. First, I cut out the outline on my trusty 1/2 horsepower Craftsmen band saw, and then I took off the sides to get the rough body shape. In the picture to the left you can see the plastic model body in the background, the roughed-out wood body. Not too bad for 30 minutes of work, is it? In the background is the 3/16" birch plywood leftover from a piano bench I made, that will become the roters.
Next up was the cutting out the roters. I decided for the sake of strength (and because I did not have a piece of thin plywood small enough) to make each "cross" piece as a whole, overlap them and then hold the whole assembly with a cap. (Actually, I was first thinking to take the cap and gluing each cross piece to it, but was stumped on how to make the whole thing rotate when I decided to turn the assembly upside down which is what you can see in the picture at the left.
Now came the "accessories": out of another piece of the birch plywood scrap I fashioned out the rear roters and decided to make this a single assembly. I also found some 1/8" dowel which became the axle for the wheels and the gun. 2 pieces of 3/16" dowel became the axles for both roter assemblies. 1" dowel was used to create a cap for the rear dowel and the chin-gun assembly. All was cut out on the band saw, while the holes for the roters, axles and chin-gun were done on my Craftsmen drill press. Topping it off were some 1" wheels I had left over from a wood train I built for Levi. The picture at the right shows the dry assembled version with exception of the "engine" nacelles which are some scrap 1/2" plywood that are sitting behind the copter.Now it was time to sand the parts and round off the edges. I was tempted to put much of it through my router, but decided instead to do all the rounding and shaping on my Craftsmen combo disc/belt sander. The cutting and sanding and fitting of parts took 2 hours.
Here are the parts ready to be assembled and there is also an excited Levi who can't wait. My idea on the roters was to glue the 1/4" dowel into the body of the craft, have the roters placed on the dowel, and then glue the cap on. Wheels would be done the same way with the axle running through the body and wheels glued on both ends. Trickier was the chin-gun - a 1/8" dowel was used as the mount, and a last minute decision by Levi turned the rotating chin-gun into a fixed mount weapon. Lastly the engines were glued to the side of the craft. In all, no nails or screw were used in this project.
The hardest part was gluing the top roters in an X without accidentally gluing them to dowel, body or cap. Some glue on a paper plate and toothpick made sure the glue only went were it needed to go. On the right is the "finished" helicopter waiting to solidify overnight. Since I had used a scrap piece of 2x4 that had spent some time outside, I took a little time to infuse the various splits with some glue to prevent the body from splitting apart.
After the glue had about 10 minutes to set, the new toy was put through its maiden flight, and I am proud to report that no mishaps -- major or minor -- occurred. Levi ordered the copter to be unpainted, so after drying all night, he took permanent possession this morning. With some hot glue help from his mom, he added some eyes, and then he applied some camouflage using Crayola Dot paint -- blue of course. Pilot has already logged 2 hours flight time and was able to walk away from a crash with no damage!
