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Time for a little history. In the dim and distant past before they invented colour, bean juice (castor oil) was used in engines as a lubricant. Up to 30% was not uncommon for model engines in those days and castor was a very popular choice. This popularity was for good reasons. It was inexpensive, easy to get hold of, and did a good job as a lubricant. It was also quite viscous which could be an advantage if the fits within the engine were a little suspect as it gummed up the gaps. Crucially, it was better than synthetic oils of the day. Just ask the Germans in WWI. However, castor also makes a dreadful mess and leaves carbon/varnish all over the innards of your engine. The goo on the outside can also gum up cooling fins as dirt and bumble bees get suck to it, exhausts get blocked, and its prone to setting solid leaving your engine totally locked up. It is also a natural product and so its performance will always vary. As a result, you need more of it to guarantee the required lubrication. Fast forward to today and we have synthetic oils which are assembled molecule by molecule using computer controlled voodoo. Engines are made from vastly superior materials and with much tighter tolerances. Since the 90's 15% synthetic oil has been all you need and frankly even this is excessive with 10% probably a more realistic figure today. It always causes a row as not everyone has moved with the times but castor is a dead lubricant now and best forgotten. As they used to tell you at school, quality over quantity. When i was working at laser i did experiments with oil content. This was an offshoot from petrol engine work i was also doing. The petrol engine was running at 40:1 (2.5% i think that is?) at the time, so i wondered if a glow engine would work on that. I mixed up methanol and oil at the same ratio and left it running at 75% throttle for an hour, when it finally ran out of fuel. I then flew some of my own engines on 5% oil for a few years, this was no bother, and then introduced the low oil fuel at 7% to give a big improvement over standard 15% oil fuel, and give room for improvement later. Some customers have run their OS engines on the low oil fuel and had no problems, but i havent tested that so its on you if you have a go and it fails. Frankly, i think OS's would be fine, but as i dont fancy getting yelled at when someone kills their prized motor its not a recommendation from me, but 15% is fine for everything. If you stick to 15% oil, which you might as well do unless you have a laser, you can clean up your exhaust residue significantly by tuning the engine for peak performance and nut having it chuff around half a turn rich of peak and with a slow run needle set so the engine is on the verge of hydraulic lock. Always tune for peak performance on both needles.

There are a number of collectors of vintage transmitters and other radio gear, both for nostalgia's sake, but also for conversion to modern 2.4ghz use. You would reach a larger audience if you posted on the Net Zero site and the BMFA Classified ads. Hope that you find a good home for your gear, it would be a shame for it to just go in the bin.

Has anyone put a motor into the Petrel? Am thinking of doing this and some guidance would be great.8

Back to the shed for another discharging session. Following the concerns of my charging set up, I decided to change my charging set up ..... slightly ..... and since it is a reasonable night ..... I moved it outdoors. should anything untoward happen ..... I have a master plan ........ I boot the table clear of the shed and let them burn out in the open. I really must remember to pick up a fire extinguisuer as part of a slightly more robust plan ..... meanwhile ..... fingers crossed. toto

Andy-H it would help if you could tell us which engine you are talking about.

Tesco.

Isn't there a model museum in the UK ?

Not if you’re an occasional user of Office 365 and download Office Libre - you’ll hardly notice any difference between it and Office 365… https://www.libreoffice.org/download/download-libreoffice/

I don't think you should dispose of it that quickly - there are people who collect and modify old Tx stuff. if it is unusal then collectors might be interested. The proprietor of Als Hobbies is known to have a collection of old radios etc - worth a phone call perhaps?

Might be miniscule the fuel mixture has to be adjusted to get the correct fuel/air ratio for a good burn, the oil is a negligible volume

Right.so my annual subscription says family version, Office 365. Word, Excel etc. Do I need to keep paying this ?? Albert

I am guessing that the others tyres were some laps older, by a significant margin. On that basis all had undertaken the mandatory one different ( hardness) tyre change, and that was Landos first? I am not sure that the safety car as typically used is a little like introducing a random effect, a little like snakes and ladders. The Virtual Safety Car, seems much fairer, in that no advantage is arbitrary gained or lost.

Result needs updating J.P.

If that's flying most of our members are good at it too!

Others had the tyres Erf, Lando pitted for his whilst safety car slowed other drivers, that gained him time and the lead.

Hi I have 2 old Acrowot airframes that I'm thinking of restoring to get at least one decent model. One was much more fuel soaked than the other and needed lots of new parts grafted in which has increased the weight. Does anyone have a similar fuselage to tell me what weight I need to aim for? This one if I proceed will get an electric setup. The other one once stripped of all covering is pretty good and only needs minimal work mainly around the wing seat. This one will get a Laser 70.

An interesting feature on my ToolkitRC Dual charger is that if you charge on one channel & discharge on the other it will recycle the full battery to the empty one. ie if I come back with some batteries that need topping up to storage & others that need discharging then the charger will transfer the energy between the batteries at a discharge rate of up to 350W/15A compared with the stand alone discharge rate of 15W/3A.

Nice weather today but the brisk wind was due North which meant a cross wind, didn't stop us flying though!

Suitable later Lasers will run very successfully on Laser low-oil fuel with significantly less exhaust mess. I believe no other common 4 strokes are safe on it due to differing construction and materials. Slightly more powerful too as there’s proportionally more methanol. Jon might well dive in with dates when he reads this. BTC

Don't get hysterical about fuel, oil, and cleaning oil off of an engine with a 150 bar pressure washer. All engines are oily, it what modelling is all about. A rag and alcohol for cleaning oil from methanol engines, I make my paper joints mainly from paper from envelopes and cardboard ones from paper cardboard foldes, it is quicker than looking for them on the internet.

Hi Thomas, Yes, I will be posting some out this Friday so can get a couple to you if I've got the bottles. £5 covers p&p PM me Rich

Me again. Can I ask what folk do for replacement gaskets if a four stroke motor needs striping & cleaning ? I’m assuming old gaskets are likely to tear during disassembly. Are spares available or is there a DIY way of making new ones ? Also, I’ve seen reference to using a low-oil fuel with Laser engines. Does that mean Laser engines are less messy than other brands or am I misinterpreting this ?

Thank you for all replies to my post the training plane is an Apprentice 1.5 mts it did have a stabiliser fitted but it was turned off. I have been using this plane on my Phoenix 5.5 simulator as well and have now added the wind affect to try help familiarise with flying in it. I will try to down load the BMFA book mentioned thanks again.

Windows has bit defender built in, anyone who is paying for an Antivirus is simply (in my opinion) wasting their money, there are plenty of free antivirus programmes around, of which AVG and Avast are just two.