Building and Improving
Vacuum-Formed Model Aircraft

by E. Richard Staszak
Kalmbach Publishing
ISBN 0-89024-047-7
52 pages, with many black-and-white photographs and drawings.

By Ward Shrake

“The one and only purpose of this book is to take the mystery out of vacuum-formed modeling,” the book’s inner jacket says. “You’ll also discover that vacuum-formed kits can be just as much fun to build as any other type, and how they can greatly expand your modeling horizons.”

I found this book to do exactly that, and to do it well. I was quite pleased.

While the book mainly focuses on how one would take the raw parts found in any store-bought vacu-formed aircraft kit, and build them up into a completed scale model, there were a wealth of common-sense tips that could be applied to super-detailing efforts or other “Beyond Out-of-Box” build-ups. (And not only of scale model aircraft.)

This book is actually an Oldie-but-a-Goodie (copyright 1984) not a new release. I wanted to review it now, anyway, as sort of a tie-in piece to go with the article I wrote for this issue which talks about how you can build yourself a very cheap, simple, and portable vacu-forming machine … but that didn’t talk much about the specific “how to” of using that machine to make your own vacu-formed parts. So in a sense I’m cheating by referring you to this book: but then again, why reinvent the wheel?

This older book may be a little hard to find, these days, (except on the internet) -- but I feel you’ll find it worth the effort even if you’re just considering sort of slowly-and-gently dipping a toe in the waters of vacu-forming.

Highly recommended.

Thanks to my wallet for the review sample.