Jon H

Nope, castor is dead. It will only make the fuel worse in every respect and in the case of a 4 stroke it will eventually cause problems with carbon deposits building up. Going back to the various mechanical failures i encountered working at laser, engines run on castor then stored for long periods often failed soon after being put back into service as the castor blocked the oil hole in the conrod and gummed up the bearings causing them to eventually break up. Even without this, running castor will gum up valves, plug your exhaust and generally make a mess of everything. im not sure which engine you are intending to run, i have run laser, enya, saito and OS 80 class 4 strokes on 5% nitro and 15% synth oil and they perform faultlessly. I havent run an ASP/SC 80, but have run their other sizes and currently run a 160 flat twin of theirs on the southern 5/15 mix. I have no glow support on it and have no problems with cylinders dropping out. I have some 1980's engines including an OS pegasus 4 cylinder which states clearly in the instructions 20% castor. It too gets 15% synthetic and i would not be taking a chance on an engine like that if i was in any doubt. Im even considering dropping it to 10% oil as im sure it would be fine. Brian and i will never agree on Westons fuel, but im pretty sure we are both on the same page when it comes to castor. I would love to know myself exactly what was happening but it was beyond the scope of my job. All i can tell you is that the most broken engines were always run on the same fuel and it was always the rear bearing that broke up, seemingly at random. Bores would also score up for no reason as well from time to time. In an effort to work it out and test the fuel myself i found its performance to be worse than the fuels i already had on hand so at that point i just kinda left it. In retrospect i should have chosen a sacrificial lamb and kept pushing, but each engine i used (all 4 stroke) just ran like a dog. At least, it ran like a dog by my standards. Building and running engines every day i noticed things that most wouldnt. The twin experiment was interesting though and really showed the difference in the performance. The engines wouldnt run together no matter what i did so i abandoned it. I am often accused of having a vendetta or something against westons fuel and that simply isnt the case. I tried to give it a fair go and found it didnt perform. There were also too many unknowns about the oil and the pile of exploded bearings to consider as well, so i concluded it wasnt worth the risk. If it helps, i also wouldnt recommend about 99% of the fuel on the market for one reason or another for normal fixed wing stuff, mostly due to excess nitro and oil. Its expensive and messy, who wants that?

You would be better off with southern modelcraft or optifuel. That said, opti are shooting themselves in the foot with their high prices so southern would get my vote. I wouldnt use weston fuel for anything due to its poor performance vs other fuels (testing the same engine back to back on different fuels keeping everything else constant), poor foam resistance and a substantial number of mechanical failures on engines run using it. Not knowing what the oil is or its quantity is also a red flag. As i was with a manufacturer i was dealing with a sample size far greater than anything discussed. Trends were very apparent with a disproportionate number of the most major failures being run on one fuel and always the same failure. The failure did occur in other engines as well, but not in anywhere near the same numbers. My attempt at a long term investigation into the problem was thwarted by the poor performance of the engine running on it. The idea was to run a twin engine model on two different fuels, one for each side. The long term health of the engines could then be compared more directly than if they were in different models and the possibility of user error removed. Unfortunately the weston fuelled engine ran so badly the model was very unpleasant to fly and i abandoned the experiment after about 3 flights.

Not so far, i am waiting to hear back as the chap has been busy and not been able to get the stuff dropped off. Apparently its a bit of a logistical challenge getting from his place to where the models are, then over to me in Aylesbury. Im sure we will get there in the end. This also seems like a decent time for a roundup. Most of the current batch of models have gone. The P47 kit, the built radio queen, and the basic 2000 kit are still available. On the engine side the enya engines are still available as is the mills and the engines in bits. I might bung the fox engines etc on ebay but realistically i dont think they are going attract much attention.

I can sort out your carb problem, i sent you a message

Ok, im back. pm sent.

I would be very interested to know what they did to turn it into a 100. I cant help but think they would need a whole new crankcase to bore it or stroke it.

no it didnt give me a notification....

Not sure. As has been said, a club auction/bring and buy might work but with few builders around half built models or models in need of major restoration are unlikely to draw a crowd. Some stuff will go I'm sure but not everything. I'm sure there will be dregs that just end up in the bin. I already threw out a load of old nylon props. All bent and chewed up, totally useless

Glad we managed to find it. DPD decided to drop it off 4 miles short of its destination for some reason so a search and rescue mission was required. 🙄 Theres been a delay collecting the last batch of bits but it will probably come this week. As i said already its likely to be low value for the most part, but there seems to be an electric ju52 in there which looks quite nice. Details to follow when i get the stuff in my hands. Of the existing stiff most of the engines are still available but the mercos, os 10 and 15 are sold. Model wise the 40 trainer and the built radio queen are still looking for homes.

what about insufficient? My small hurricane did some similar things due to very low incidence.

Maybe not. I would check wing incidences before doing anything else. For a biplane like that i would guess 0,+2,+3 for tail, lower wing, top wing. It is a guess though. See if you can find a plan on outzone for a similar model and do a comparison.

Stand by. Ill be back...

If the slow run needle is too lean the main will become unresponsive on an st carb. When it comes to cleaning I have hooked up my fuel pump to the carb and blasted it that way. Another issue is the spray bar being in the wrong place. St carb spray bars are adjustable and it could be out of whack

What? It must be more than a foot from the engine?! no wonder it needed pressure. A 12oz tank is all it needs and that will fit in the bay in front of the wing. APC prop is fine, wooden one would look nice...just avoid master airscrew. replace the needle if you can, or remove the abomination and replace with a thin wire soldered on with a support in the cowl. Helicopter canopy mounting rubbers can be useful for this. Pipes. One clunk, one vent to forward facing pipe hanging out of the cowl, one fill/drain. Be careful pulling G on the airframe. The top wing centre section design is pretty naff and depending on a variety of factors its not hard to tear the wings off. I dont let others fly mine as their exuberance may remove the wings. I break my dummy flying wires all the time despite having substantial slack in them. You can still fly aerobatics, and i do with mine, just be gentle. When i build a new one i will modify the wings to make them stronger. The model was designed to weigh half of what they do now, with a merco 61 at the front and no ability to do aerobatics. Times have changed, the model has not, mods are needed.

I used one, a dubro, and it leaked. So i replaced it with another more expensive one, and that also leaked. The latter one lasted a while, but both were rubbish and they were a constant problem on customer engines so they are in my naughty books forever!