Make: Technology on Your Time Volume 28

Maker BALSA DREAMS

Paul K. Guillow’s model airplanes have been buzzing over parks since 1926.

By Andrew Leonard

“This is pretty cool,” my 13-year-old son, Eli, admitted, as we waited for the glue to dry on the wing of a Cessna 150 balsa wood model airplane. I couldn’t disagree.

Way back in the last century, when I was 13, I devoted many happy hours to building scale model “stick and tissue” airplanes — Sopwith Camels, Fokker D.VIIs, P-51 Mustangs, and Mitsubishi Zeros. To see my son groove to the simple pleasures of balsa wood construction struck a familiar chord. Snapping together the plastic parts of a sci-fi Japanese robot is fun; building a wood-and-paper plane that can fly generates a higher class of satisfaction.

My son’s interest in the ...