The good old days?

[Dave MilbournParticipant @davemilbourn48782]

I was musing over the construction of a new model boat and it suddenly occurred to me how much more is available to us now, by way of materials and techniques, than was back in the good old days (around 1965) when I first started making RC models. I compiled a list and wondered just how the hell we managed with just plywood, balsa, dope, balsa cement and Humbrol tinlets?!! Vic Smeed was truly an exceptional modeller.

Here's my list:
Computer design/drawing programs
Liteply
Aliphatic resin glue
Cyanoacrylate glue
Canopy glue
5-minute Epoxy glue
Epoxy finishing resin
Lightweight glassfibre cloth
Silicon carbide abrasive paper
Resin casting kits
Thin styrene sheet
Aerosol acrylic paint
Fine line masking tape
Frisk masking film
Inkjet waterslide transfer paper
Mirror chrome self-adhesive paper
High-speed DC brushed motors
Brushless DC motors
NiMH and LiPo battery packs
Electronic motor speed controllers
Deans connectors
2G4 digital proportional radio

Scary, isn't it?

Dave M

Edited By Dave Milbourn on 27/07/2016 14:04:59

[Dave MilbournParticipant @davemilbourn48782]

[Charles OatesParticipant @charlesoates31738]

Hi Dave. We started about the same time. Remember Mac Greggor carrier wave radio?

Things are certainly much easier now, and I'm having just as much fun. The difference to me is that in those early days radio modelers were seen as rare skilled individuals, as a kid I aspired to be like them. Now we seem odd to many people. I expect the wheel of change will continue to rotate.

I wouldn't swap an ESC for an old kinematic, thank goodness for modern technology.

Chas

[Dave MilbournParticipant @davemilbourn48782]

Too true, blue! Ours was an ED Black Prince ground-based tranny and an REP Unitone receiver. 1.5v valve low tension + 22.5v valve high tension + 4.5v for the Fred Rising escapement. Forget to wind up the rubber band and you were b******d.

For those who are wondering what the heck a Kinematic is, imagine trying to control your motor and you rudder with a single push-button on the Tx. No? Have a look here,,,, and weep. **LINK**

DM

[Bob Abell 2Participant @bobabell2]

You seem to have forgotten the indispensable……….P38 filler

Not forgetting Fibre Glass

3D printing…….Ooooooo!

And Jim Reeves

Bob

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

For my part, being born rather than getting into the hobby in 1965, the differences between then and now seem slightly less dramatic: my true entry into r/c model boating began in 1979, when I spent a large chunk of what I'd earned in my summer job on an O.S. Cougar 4 channel set, compelte with r/x and four servos. Of course my present day 2,4GHz set knows quite a few more tricks, and is handier in many ways, and there are indeed a number of materials, adhesives, and pieces of technical equipment available now that didn't exist then, but to me they seem more like extensions and improvements on what I remember from the first half of the 1980s than like something completely different (and now for …).

The really big difference for me is the richness and availability of and ease of access to information! Back in the day, the occasional article in the Swedish periodical Allt om Hobby ("Everything on Hobbies", which otherwise mainly wrote about trains and planes, perhaps an odd copy of Model Boats if someone had been to Copenhagen or Stockholm, were international press could be found, and cheaply printed catalogues from the larger hobby shops was what I had to be contented with; for the rest, it was mainly guess work, trial-and-error, and discussions with a similarly inclined mate of mine.

That said, I do of course agree that things have come quite a long way since the 1980s also on the materials front. At the moment, I probably get the biggest kick from the modern ESCs; when I started out, I certainly couldn't afford the rheostat type proportional speed controls, even if I had known where to buy one, and any model of mine with electric propulsion was "controlled" by a three-way switch mechanically connected to a servo that would give (full) forward, stop and (full) reverse.

/Mattias

Edited By Banjoman on 27/07/2016 15:22:20

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