Restoration Log 1 Grandpa’s Cub

These before-and-after photos document the results of some dedicated restoration work by Bob. Why would anybody pay us to do this? Wouldn’t it be a lot easier, faster and less expensive just to get a new model?

In this case our customer wanted to have us create a family heirloom from the actual remains of what was left of the 1/6 scale Piper J-3 Cub originally built from a SIG kit. They wanted to retain as much as possible of THAT model airplane.

Grandpa had passed several years ago, leaving what was left of a model he had always refused to give up on, before he was able to get it to match the RC model airplane of his dreams. In this case there was not much left but those dreams. Bob’s question was, “What do you want to restore it TO?” The right answer turned out to be the airplane Grandpa always dreamed of having. That’s what Bob did.

Cub 1: Let’s start with a before-and-after comparison that will give you a good of the kind of work Bob is prepared to do. Here’s the nose of a straight-from-the-box SIG 1/6 scale (71” span) Piper J-3 Cub. It was not hard to determine that it had been flown with a glow engine of some sort, that there was going to be plenty of oil soaking damage to fix, and that there were several construction errors that compromised scale fidelity and would have to be corrected to get the Dream Model the family wanted.

Cub 2: This the same view of the finished restoration. You might notice that the model is no longer a J-3. Here’s the story. The customer wanted a really neat, no-compromises model. We explained that to do a restoration of Grandpa’s Cub to our usual standards, doing it as a J-3 would have meant a LOT of extra time (and expense) going into the scale dummy Continental A-65 engine required to make it look right. It happens that the PA-11 Cub Special is pretty much a J-3 with a full cowl requiring only the most basic engine detail, and that’s the way they decided to have us restore it. Grandpa would have preferred it this way.

Cub 3: This section of the left fuselage side looks worse for the wear. The covering had to come off, and then clear plastic cabin window inserts. That’s when it became clear how much real work there was going to be, as just about everything behind and beneath the surfaces you can see here were badly oil soaked.

Cub 4: When Bob got the model, the entire fuselage behind the wing had been fixed by adding this plastic film covering reinforcement. Stuff like that is always suspect.

Cub 5: A closer look made it clear that there was indeed going to be a lot to repair; maybe even replace, under that sheet of yellow covering. It was also clear that the tail surfaces would have to be taken down to bare wood before proceeding any further.

Cub 6: Just as was the case with the fuselage, the wing did not look that bad from the outside. Once all that old covering came off, small breaks and crushed spots appeared everywhere. It was also going to be necessary to cut both outer panels free from the center section and redesign the structure to provide an accurate scale two-piece wing.

Cub 7: When that big sloppy looking piece of plastic covering came off the tail, what was actually left of the old fuselage structure looked like this.

Cub 8: Here’s another look at the opened-up fuselage with all the clutter cleared away. The tail surface assembly is off to the side for now.

Cub 9: It would have been less involved simply to build a new rear fuselage from original plans, but the customer had sentimental reasons for wanting as many original bits as possible retained. Putting it back together frame-by-frame using these outer alignment rails made the most sense.

Cub 10: The front end of the fuselage has been stripped of every trace of old covering and painstakingly cleaned of oil and other contaminants with plenty of acetone solvent. The old firewall has been completely removed to make room for the slightly wider PA-11 former. You can see the new, integral top wing center section mostly in place. At the left the new tail frames and formers have been made and installed. The top stringer will come next there.

Cub 11: With all that new fuselage structure integrated with what was left of the original it was time to see how the model was going to look with some covering in place. This is Coverite with the first coat of clear nitrate dope applied.

Cub 12: A lot of work went into getting the wing right. On the full scale airplane each separate wing panel joins at the root under e sheet metal cover plate. It happens that all of the “long wing” fabric covered full scale Pipers used ½ degree per panel of dihedral. When this is done right it’s easy to think the model has none. It’s supposed to look like this.

Cub 13: Here’s the finished restoration of Grandpa’s Cub ready to be disassembled and packed for shipping “back home”. There was a lot of work that counted as “conservation” as well as “restoration” involved with this airplane. In addition it was necessary to design and build a new cowl for the PA-11 version the customer chose, as there were no accurate 1/6 scale molded cowls available. With all that considered our customer agreed that what he got was easily worth $1500.00 of our time in addition to the various material costs and shipping charges necessary to get the job done.

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