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Charles Smitheman

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Everything posted by Charles Smitheman

  1. Charles Smitheman

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  2. Charles Smitheman
    As far as the way it flew this has to be it, but what a laugh! I made Garfield for a club open day some years back. The family all helped, My wife and daughter made the pizza toppings out of modelling clay. I could not find a plan so just made it up as I went along. The first launch indicated that the cg was too far back, as it did a very tight loop and tried to take my sons head off (the launcher). I eventually added one foot of lead pipe to the leading edge to get the cg to 25%. It flew ok unless you touched down elevator, which resulted in an instant inverted snap roll. Eventually last year the Webra speed 61 went dead stick. The glide was abut a 70 degree angle. It "landed" on the runway, but the lead pipe ballast removed itself from the airframe. So long Garfield.
  3. Charles Smitheman

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  4. Charles Smitheman
    Here is my Ripmax Harmony. I added flaps, made the uc legs longer (had to move the wheel wells) replaced all the horrible plastic bits with balsa, and used a cut down Sebart Angel 50 canopy. It can do 540 deg stall turns!
  5. Charles Smitheman

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  6. Charles Smitheman
    Agree with the above, In my experience the switch is possibly the number one cause of radio failures (along with dodgy wiring in general). Testing it as the OP did is an excellent wheeze, I have been doing similarly, and have thrown away a good few switches. The Futaba HD one is my favourite, but my LHS states that they are discontinued. I hope he is wrong.
  7. Charles Smitheman
    Phil, it is the 1/4 scale one, I think the 1/3 scale one is a single holer. It is not light; the wing spars for example are spectacular bits of spruce. I fitted split flaps which add to the fun and make landings a doddle. You can just see them extended in this pic.
  8. Charles Smitheman
    Alan you came up trumps! I have ordered one from the EBay seller in your link. Many thanks Charles.
  9. Charles Smitheman
    I see that I failed to give any feedback of my fun and games with this engine last summer. Better late than never they say, so here it is. I ran the engine in successfully (using the 12% Opti fuel) I flew it in the Svenson Baronett. and it had oodles of power for the job. In fact it was idling most of the time. The idle was totally reliable. Starting once run in was easy, it was even possible to start it on one pot, then to energise the second one once it was running with the glow stick. The plugs used were OS8. The only downside to the project is that it has been deemed too noisy for our club. It does have a pretty healthy crackle to it at full power. So I need to manufacture a silencer, and this has not happened yet. Thanks once again for the advice.
  10. Charles Smitheman
    Thanks so much for the tips, I shall do some further searching. Charles
  11. Charles Smitheman
    I have just purchased this model (Thanks Peter) and flew it on Sunday. It is powered by the above mentioned vintage Enya. The engine is in good condition apart from the cylinder liner, which appears to have suffered dirt ingress and is scored. The engine runs, but is weak, and has very low compression. The part number from Steve Webb models is 60IIIB04 for an new cylinder and piston, but it is unavailable anymore. Does anyone have an part to help me out or an old engine for spares, or know of someone who can repair it? I would like to keep the engine in this model as it is correct for the period. Thanks, Charles
  12. Charles Smitheman
    This is my Sig Spacewalker II, well powered by a lovely Laser 150.
  13. Charles Smitheman

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  14. Charles Smitheman

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  15. Charles Smitheman

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  16. Charles Smitheman
    Have to say thanks to you all for the heads up on this one. I snuck off work and got one yesterday. Plenty at the Gap RD Wimbledon branch. It looks very good.for the price. No more excuses now to get building. I also got the jiggly cut into the corners thingy (general purpose cutter sander?) which looks great. With a fine blade it should have model building applications too. I was thinking perhaps for removing a skew fin perhaps.
  17. Charles Smitheman
    RIP IC. Just send me your engines then....
  18. Charles Smitheman
    Great stuff, thanks for the memories!
  19. Charles Smitheman
    This brings back many memories. Keep up the good work.
  20. Charles Smitheman
    Thanks for that link. So the bucket of water is a good idea after all.
  21. Charles Smitheman
    "has anyone ever had a serious problem with properly treated Lipos?" Yes. Many years ago when a 1300 mah 3s pack cost £50! As I was plugging the connectors in to fly the model the pack short circuited inside and burned briefly, but only at the wiring connection end. This was inside the pack and nothing to do with the bullet connector outside that I was plugging in at the time. On reflection I suspect that there was an insulation fault where the balance wires were connected to the cells inside the pack. As soon as the wire had burned loose from the cell, the fire went out. I was lucky. So the fire was caused by wiring, and not a spontaneous chemical reaction. I have also some years back had a new pack where there was a dry solder joint between one of the balance leads and the cell. This utterly confused my charger at the time and it tried to over charge the cell. I was watching and detected it in time. This could have been disastrous. So in my experience the lipos are more likely to do something nasty whilst they are being handled in any way. Now I only purchase top brand packs and use a top brand charger.   Fire extinguishers: I always have a CO2 extinguisher to hand. These would not extinguish a burning lipo as it releases its own oxygen, but it would help lower the temperature. They are excellent for liquid fires such as petrol. And no mess at all. The problem with all extinguishers is that they don't last very long. And they do nothing if not pointed properly at the base of the flame. Seconds count.
  22. Charles Smitheman
    Laser cut rib sets for the Caprice are available from igull ebay shop. Easily found with a google search, I do not know how to put in a link. I bought a set for the Graupner Cirrus last year. They are immaculately made. If I did not have a ridiculous amount of projects I would be building another Caprice, my first one in 1969 was a really good flyer, and I have many fond memories of it.
  23. Charles Smitheman
    That looks nice Peter. What is the wing section? Symmetrical or semi?
  24. Charles Smitheman
    I am also a 35Mhz user on my older models. If your RX are PCM then they are almost as good as 2.4. FM RX are more susceptible to glitches, and not really good enough for electric models. However some are better than others. The benefit of this is that I keep on being given more 35Mhz rx's! The big challenge is remembering to extend the TX aerial before flight. I always partly extend it before startup, as a reminder. On 2.4 I am using FRSky rx with Futaba TX. I have never had a problem with this setup, unlike the other make I had earlier. In my experience most radio problems (with better quality manufacturers) are caused by the RX battery followed by the switch and harness and wiring, and then by broken aerials. Maintain these and the rest goes on for ever.
  25. Charles Smitheman
    I always test them on a servo tester. What saved my bacon on one occasion was load testing some new servos (grab the disc whilst it is moving) the servos just froze up in the position they were last at. If unplugged and plugged in again they again worked as normal. I had a Savox MG servo jam up in flight a week back, fortunately on rudder, so the model survived. I think the gears may have become damaged by vibration. Again after landing and a bit of wiggling it started to work again! I have replaced it with a Futaba3010 which seem to be good, although the response is not as crisp. The model is a Capiche 50 with a Saito 82, so quite some stress going on. As stated previously choose servos to match the application.
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