Aircraft display stands

[seadude]

I'm looking for ideas and suggestions for displaying aircraft on a display stand. Pics would help too if ya got any. I need to put the aircraft from this thread on display stands rather than having them on their landing gear.
http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,41251.0.html

The SR-75 has the landing gear down, but it isn't sturdy enough and is fragile.
The SR-91 needs to be put on a display stand.
The SR-72 already has it's own display stand.
I bought a Testor XR-7 Thunder Dart that will need a display stand too.

[TomZ]

Last year I bought a set of Airfix clear stands. They are quite stable and I think they look nice.



TomZ

[kitnut617]

Don't know if this would work like this, bigger of course

[Dizzyfugu]

I have been using a scrathed design similar to the BDs' arrangement: basically a heavy base with a vertical iron wire (2,5 mm strong, for heavy kits I used tougher material), and in the kit's CG I drill a hole from below and insert a piece of styrene tube that fits snuggly over the wire. Very simple, but effective, and really hard to see. It also leaves only a small hole in the kit, if you leave the display away.

Here's a pic of a 1:100 Macross Valkyrie with such a display - in this case, the base is actually a piece from the kit's OOB display, but it has been filled with lead and covered on the outside with black sponge rubber - the attachment point inside of the kit is in this case the rear of a gun pod under the VF-1's belly:

"Hell's kitchen" or: what to do with an oven if not for cooking by dizzyfugu, on Flickr

[zenrat]

Aha! The secrets of Dizzy's photography partially explained.

I remember the good old days when every model came with a stand.  Sigh.
Why not pinch the basics of Trumpeters design?

Use clear sheet shaped on top to fit the undersides of the models and fit them into slots on a base large enough to take all the planes.

[seadude]

and in the kit's CG I drill

And how exactly do I determine a kit's center of gravity? Any suggestions?

@zenrat:  I was thinking about one of those types of stands. But it's only good for aircraft fuselages that are round on the bottom. The SR-91 Aurora model I have doesn't have a round fuselage bottom. And neither does the XR-7 Thunder Dart model.

[kitnut617]

And how exactly do I determine a kit's center of gravity? Any suggestions?

Loop a bit of string around the model, it might help if you have a bit of masking tape to fix the string to the bottom so the string doesn't slip along the leading edges of the wing.  Once attached, lift the model with the string slowly and not very high, and see which end stays on the bench, then keep moving the loop towards that end that is on the bench until it just balances out. Then you have the cg of your kit.

[Dizzyfugu]

and in the kit's CG I drill

And how exactly do I determine a kit's center of gravity? Any suggestions?

@zenrat:  I was thinking about one of those types of stands. But it's only good for aircraft fuselages that are round on the bottom. The SR-91 Aurora model I have doesn't have a round fuselage bottom. And neither does the XR-7 Thunder Dart model.

Simple balancing on the hand, or intuition. Normally, you get a good idea where "the middle" is, and being a bit off is not so dramatic. With my construction you just have to make sure that the adapter inside the kit is vertical, and/or that the CG rests over the base, for a stable stand. In the VF-1 example, the display wire is off-CG, due to the attachment point in the kit's rear section, but the CG rests above the weighted base - it's pretty stable.