Building whatifs from cardboard...

[Archibald]

Ok some of you asked me how i made my wings and the like from cardboard. Here's the secret (well, there's no secret!!)
Cardboard is a nice material you can can cut it, removed it, draw lines on it quite easily. I use cardboard from the model boxes left after the building of the plane.

The key of my building is not really the cardboard itself : its more the Loctite strong glue (i don( give a damn about the brand, I'm only interested in the glue!!)
The power of this glue is really incredible and i must say I glued some incredibles things with it  (including shoes, broken cups and plates, and the like).
My consumption of this glue (for the models, not for eating!!!)  is quite enormous which means very expensive (an 8 gramms pot cost 5 euros and 8 gramms is very, very few...)

My method
supposing you want to make the wings of a whatif plane in 1/72 scale.

-1 find  a 3-view of the plane
-2 include this 3-view on a WORD file
-3 take your calculator, to see the dimensions of the wing in 1/72 scale (in cm)
-4 extend the 3-wiew up to the 1/72 scale
-5 Print the thing
-6 cut the "wings". you have 1/72 scale wings, but only from paper...
-7 Glue the paper wings-form to a cardboard box (of a model you made)
-8 when the paper is glued to the wing, take a pen and firmly draw the panels lines
-9 cut the cardboard around the wing...

You have your pair of wings... apparently the thing is quite strong, because of the paper/cardboard combo, but also because of the glue...
With such glue, you can...glue cardboard to paper, and paper to plastic. there's no problems...

[Leigh]

How does it react to paint mediums and putting the decals on? Do you seal it with something?

[Archibald]

Quite surprisingly,it react well to paint.
I feared, too that cardboard would curve under the weight of the paint, but it resist well, and I don't know why!!
Maybe because of the paper reinforcement on one side, but also the high resistance of the glue... concerning water, its the same thing. In fact, it can suffer a bit but the water don't go very deep, and the paper quickly dried whithout problems. There's also various type of boxes made of different cardboard...

Aparently cardboard is more solid than we thought
I know this may sound strange, but it works!!  

[Geoff_B]

I think you will find plastic card a more suitable material, the same process can be used for creating the basic shape but the plastic can then be laminated, shaped and filled using standard modelling tools to create the aerofoil shapes, scribe on flaps and panel lines etc.

G

[Archibald]

Thankd for your advice Thotvic but finding plastic card is not so easy in France... but well I must try to find some (and i add that cardboard is free when plastic card would probably cost some euros i haven't much )