To me, it varies a lot.
However, in many ways, my motto could be a tweak of the NIKE motto:
JUST FLY IT!
So it doesn't look "perfect"? I usually don't care. Well, OK, I care a bit. But I don't let the appearance get in the way of flying it, or cause me to put more time into building it than I feel is worth it to me, for that particular model.
Especially when it is a "sport" model.
For my contest models, actually, many contest type models for duration events fly worse, not better, when you add paint and fill the fins and such. So, many times the finishing is minimal, and sometimes the "color" is not paint but magic marker to help with visibility.
For my gliders, they need to be built well......due to the flying part, not the "looks" part. But sometimes they are left bare balsa. Sometimes with a coat or two of clear dope (and magic marker long after the dope has dried). Sometimes Japanese tissue. And in recent years, a few with laid-up composite foam/fiberglass/graphite, where I need to try to get them "perfect" aerodynamically……but often the coloring ends up as magic marker because paint adds too much weight. And the gliders are never going to be perfect aerodynamically, always tradeoffs, and fabrication limitations. And often a few "oops" moments....well, so it might lose a few seconds, but I've never run across a stopwatch that takes off extra time due to the visual appearance of the model.
Now scale models are a bit of a different thing. But, my scale building skills, on a scale of 1 to 10, are not a 10 (IMHO, above a 5, but maybe closer to 5 than 10....). I make careful choices of what to build, figuring out if I can build some of the more difficult details, and other things.
When I built Little Joe-II models, I did not even commit to build them until I solved what I saw as three key problems, the Corrugated Body (made it from curling a 12" wide sheet of corrugated plastic), the scratchbuilt Escape Tower (made up a jig, cutting guides, and ran tests gluding styrene rods till I could built one that looked good), and how to make the "UNITED STATES" lettering appear accurately on the corrugated body (drew up the letters, print onto paper, rubber cemented the paper to a sheet of black decal, hand-cut the letters, peeled off the paper from the black decal letters, and found a way to "press" the wet black decal letters into the corrugations). So, that was not a case of my choosing to build a scale model because I had the "level 10" building skills to pull it off (I do not), it was using some common sense to figure out what I could probably do with some tricks in place of building skill, and finding out if those theoretical tricks would work before committing to it for sure.
An example of not letting perfection drive you mad in scale is NOT to do things like a model with rivets, unless you are a "level 10" builder who can do that stuff. Not for me. Later, when I built a shuttle for contest flying, when people asked me why didn't I do the tiles, I have often told them to show me THEIR shuttle model with tiles first, and then ask me again.
But here is the other shoe dropping. Every time I got deep into building scale models like those, I got burned out. Such as the Little Joe-II and Shuttle models for contests.
Yet, one time I made a "sport" Little Joe-II, 7" in diameter, 4 feet tall, powered by a G25 and six C6's. I made no attempt at all to make it accurate, so it would be a lot faster and easier to build. Because I was building it as a model to FLY for sport, not to be officially judged for anything. In a similar vein, I have also made some "sport" shuttle models thru the years too, where scale appearance did not matter, flying them mattered.
So, if I am building a scale model for "Fun" and not a contest, the LAST thing I m ever going to do is to put a lot of time and effort into it. I'll build to some arbitrary level where it's not as good as I could do, but it's as much as I'm willing to do for that particular model, for whatever reason I have had for building it. Because if it takes more time and effort to do it than I feel it is worth, then it's not a "fun" model that I'd be willing to risk damaging/losing/destroying flying it often.
Now, I know there are some who love building to the point that they might also enjoy building ships in bottles. I do not like building. If I could press a button and it would be built in 5 minutes, I'd go for that. But many of the models I fly are unique, and some of my enjoyment comes from designing and getting those designs to work. So, I would not have any of those to fly, if I did not build them. At times with some models I have realized at moments that, wow, I really built that. And I take pride in those. But I
don't let that get in the way of the flying, or put in more effort for "perfection" that can never be achieved for real.
The other thing is, that if you stick with the hobby long enough you will accumulate a lot of skills for doing various things. Sometimes you can develop or learn how to do some things that you never thought you'd be able to do. But once you learn those, it would be a terrible trap to fall into to feeling committed to always build every model to the maximum of all those skills learned. That would be less of a hobby, and more like OCD.
The glider example, if I want to make a 1/4A Boost Glider, I can build one in well under an hour , that can win a big contest, with a less-than-ideal hand sanded wing airfoil and not even add any finish beyond magic marker. But if I cranked it up to what I could do, I could get foam cores cut for the wings and spend a few hours preparing for, and doing the layup to make a composite wing for it, as made for D or E sized R/C rocket glide. And give it two days to cure fully in the vacuum bag and the "hot box" But that would be overkill. And a major burnout factor if I built all my models to the maximum of everything I have learned......I would not be in the hobby long if I did that.
And, I learned how to use an airbrush. No fancy camouflage or artsy stuff, simply when a spray can is not a good option for a certain model, or a unique color not available in a spray can. Such as the Little Joe-II, it used an aluminized paint that had to be airbrushed. But that is why I rarely do it.... not worth the hassle most of the time.
If it flies reliably, and flies as good as I expected it to be able to fly, then I've achieved the main reason for building it, period.
JUST FLY IT!
- George Gassaway
:rofl::rofl:
