By GENE KEMMETER
of The Gazette
A town of Alban man's hobby is keeping an old trade alive.
Larry Riddell, 10343 E. White Pine Road, builds model radio-controlled planes to sell to those interested in flying them, even though he has no interest in flying the craft himself.
He retired after 43 years with Marathon Electric, Wausau, and considers himself semi-retired now because he works during the summer months at Sentry World Golf Course, something he's done the last eight years.
Although he doesn't fly the planes himself, he said he got interested in building them about 25 years ago, starting with smaller planes.
Now he's moved into building larger ones, most recently an Aeromaster biplane with a 7-foot wingspan and a 5-foot fuselage.
He starts with a kit for the plane, but it isn't the kind that one glues together and takes out to fly. "There is no instant plane," he said. "Most people don't have the time or patience to build them any more."
The kit includes balsa wood for a plane, but he has to cut, whittle, sand and glue the pieces to resemble the aircraft. He then reinforces some of the parts to strengthen the craft.
He constructs his planes without a motor, leaving that to the purchaser, he said. He puts in servers for the throttle, rudder and gas tank and uses fireproof paint so the craft won't burn in case of engine failure.
"It's a lot of work, but it's enjoyable," he said. "It's an old trade that nobody does any more."
He started out with small kits and used "silk span," a material like wrapping paper, to cover the craft. "You would put it on, put water on it and let it dry," he said, then paint it.
Now he uses Monocoat, an iron-on type cover that came out about seven or eight years ago. Monocoat comes in rolls and is expensive, he said, adding that the biplane cost about $72 to cover. After cutting it to put on the plane, he uses a heat gun so it adheres to the balsa and stretches, he said. "It's beautiful, but it's a tedious job," he said.
He uses a cement that is fireproof and has extra strength. He wets the balsa with rubbing alcohol instead of water on some blemishes, he said, because it works better.
"You sand, and sand, and sand," he said, explaining that he starts with medium sandpaper and works his way down to extra fine.
He has to sand the wood so it is smooth, he said, because Monocoat will show any blemish.
He adds braces for additional support, he said, but is careful not to add too much weight.
Some of the planes weigh only seven-and-a-half pounds.
The hobby can be expensive. In addition to the cost of the Monocoat, the kits are usually more than $150 and the cement is $6 per tube. He said the biplane used about $100 worth of cement.
He's working on an F4U Corsair, a gull-winged fighter for the U.S. Navy during World War II. He figures it will take about four months to finish.
The real fighter had retractors to fold the wings so they could be stored on aircraft carriers, he said, and adding the retractors to the model would cost about $139 to do. "I have put them on for someone who ordered it," he said, "but it's a lot of work."
When he finishes a model, he may advertise that one is available, usually through the River Valley Flyers of Central Wisconsin organization. "I never have too much trouble selling them," he said. "A lot of guys like to fly them but they don't want to build them.
"When I build them and you fly them, you're not going to have any trouble with them. I'm kind of a fanatic, I try to get them as perfect as I can."
Once he sold two planes to two men, he said, and they called back a few days later to buy four others, saying their wives got interested in flying the planes and wanted planes of their own.
Every one of his five grandchildren has a plane he built hanging in their rooms with their name on it, but they don't fly them, he said.
He's tried to get his sons and sons-in-law to build planes with him, he said, but gets no response.
Don Johnson, Stevens Point, said Riddell is well known among model flyers. "Other people that I've talked to say his models fly well," he said.