Jon H

https://www.modelshopleeds.co.uk/catalog/product_info.php?keywords=laser needle&sort=1a&products_id=102923 Call them, get them to bug Geoff. We had shed loads of them so unless you blokes have been hoarding them there should be plenty.

First thing to try is no spinner. Its possible that is your problem, but i would be a little surprised. I would also make sure the woodruff key securing the prop driver hasnt escaped at some point in the life of the engine. It would not be the first time. Finally when it comes to the lock nuts you only tighten the big one. The locking nut should only be nipped tight and not cranked down.

Nice to know it helped 🙂

Oh i forgot to ask. Anyone know if repro ED Bee fuel tanks are available? Someone clearly threw these engines in a bath of cellulose thinner and it melted the fuel tank on the bee.

I tell you what, 15% synth oil sure makes a difference to the mess! It wasnt massively hot after the run either even with the lean cut, so i ran out the rest of the tank and called it a day as it was getting dark. Incidentally the reason i back off the compression when it first fires is because i had already tried to get it going on the old fuel without success, and while i did my best to purge the old fuel the crankcase was still alike a swimming pool so i was getting hydraulic locking once engine revs increased. Backing off the comp screw compensated a bit while it ejected the surplus fuel.

Put it all back together and wanted to try some different fuel. I have a brand new can of D3000, which i didnt really want to open, so instead i used some of the diesel i have for the laser 4 stroke. This will upset the natives a bit, as its only got 15% synthetic oil in it. If the common folk lore is to be believed the engine will seize up in 2 seconds flat...assuming it starts at all. I got some reassuring farts out of it so set up the camera in the hope something interesting might happen.

Very true, but often excessive elevator travel causing sensitivity is incorrectly diagnosed as tail heavy leading to the addition of weight you dont need. If your model is very difficult to slow for landing and spends a portion of its time sniffing the dirt that is a good indication that it was an elevator travel problem not a tail heavy problem, and that you are now in fact nose heavy with excess rates.

after shooting the video i tapped the contrapiston out and put the engine back together. I do get a little fart of crankcase pressure so all may not be completely lost. With the contrapiston out though it was clear to feel the pinch at tdc and its really not in great nick. It almost needs honing to 9mm then two new pistons made up but i am not entirely sure its worth the effort. I do have a little 1inch cast iron bar kicking around but i would be wasting a lot of it to make parts that small.

The engine did have a castor plugged crank but i fixed that when freeing it up. It will draw fuel if choked so there are no issues there, i just cant get it to spin fast enough to do anything. When i say it fires, i mean 'pop' and shes all done. I get one pop per flick, on a few occasions its wobbled back and forward between compression but i have never had more than one pop in the same direction. Crankcase priming does nothing for it, port priming gets me a pop or two but it never runs on. Its possible the heavy prop will not allow it to accelerate but its not that big i dont think so should be fine. Front of the engine isnt weeping fuel, backplate too seems fine. One suspicion i do have is im flooding it as i run out of ether pretty quickly and it stops firing so i prime again. Eventually the bottom end us just a swimming pool of paraffin. Once i repair the mills carb i will have another go and see what happens with another tin of fuel. I will also try it not in baking heat as that probably didnt help.

Thanks for the info. Currently i can get a fire out of it with a port prime but that's it. A few pops and farts but nothing continuous. While not as practiced with diesel as glow i have never had issues getting them started so this one is annoying me! The contrapiston is very easy to move and if i back it off and just turn the engine over by hand it will push the contrapiston up the bore even without firing. My example has a red head...well, pink, but i think it started life red. I will try again with the correct size prop and some new fuel but i would have expected it to run even with the over size 7x4 i currently have fitted. There are about 15 engines i am working on that have come from an estate. I am helping appraise and ultimately sell the gear on behalf of the widow. 3 are diesels. The Dart has given trouble. The mills 1.3 i was testing also gave trouble as it refused to draw fuel and would only run on the prime. I was suspicious of the intake and sure enough, its missing the lever for the air bleed cut out so theres a massive intake leak. The ED Bee was in pieces in a bag and i suspect it was not running well as the rivet for the intake disk on the backplate was slightly loose so the fit was very poor. This seemed to run ok but again was overloaded with a larger prop due to my lack of small props and not wanting to ream out the one i had if the engine was dead. I will order up a few props, fix the mills, order some new fuel and go again. After that i will get in to the glow engines. If anyone needs 10, 15, 19, 30, 35 or 45 size engines in good nick let me know.

Just to resurrect a very old thread, but i have acquired a DC Dart and so far it has resisted all efforts to start it. Doing some reading i understand that the quality of these engines did vary and some wouldnt work right out of the box. If that is the case do we know what the problem was? Never been defeated by an engine before so im not letting this little thing be the first! I do need to get the right size prop as i am currently using one an inch too large. I also need some newer fuel, as im down to the last inch in the bottom of a tin thats 5 or more years old. i can get the engine to fire ok but it looses interest as soon as whatever is left of the ether evaporates leaving a crankcase full oil paraffin and not much else. That said, i was able to fire up an ED Bee and Mills 1.3 on this fuel without trouble so its not completely dead.

There were loads of needles available when i left so unless everyone is hoarding them there should be plenty available. I would suggest you call leeds as they can forward that on to Geoff. Leeds are the only place selling laser spares and my understanding is that Paul has not requested any so i am not sure what he is using in his rebuilds.

you could throw a 16x8 on it. should see 9000rpm+ on that. Might do it good to have a thrashing to be honest. Also do the normal stuff like valve clearance. I do have an asp 180 around here somewhere. if i can find it and run it i can give more info, but i need to rebuild my test bench first

Never seen one but always been curious. I get the feeling its a chugger rather than a powerhouse but having never tried it im not really sure

I know Laser 180's did about 7200-7400 on that prop so 6700 might be a smidge slow. The laser was long stroke though so handled bigger props well. How new is the engine? Also what plug/fuel have you got?

I just remembered an area of the build which can be updated. Per the plans the top wing is held on by self tappers into wooden blocks in the wing. This is not a robust or long term solution, especially if you break the model down for transport. On the one my dad is building he is using some small captive nuts which will allow the use of proper screws instead. You could also use those brass screw in inserts. Depending on the car you have you may also be able to leave the model fully rigged. My Nieuport comes apart very rarely and only for inspection of the innards. I can fit it in my VW golf size car in one piece which makes it deal for winter flying when i do not want to spend time in the cold faffing about getting the model ready and then taking it apart again.

The se5a will fly fine on the 40 or 48. I have the flair leginonaire (nieuport 17 lookalike) and i use a saito 45 (the old low power one, not the later special) which offers way more power than i need and scale flight is easily achieved at half throttle. I have flown flair se5a's for club mates and 50 4 stroke class engines over power them if run flat out. My Dad is also building one and will use a saito 45. In my stash of kits i have Dr1, Pup, se5a and another Nieuport all about the same size (50inch +/- a few) and they will all get 40-50 4 strokes depending on availability in my engine stash and how well a given engine physically fits the model. I was also taught to fly on the flair puppeteer, which is larger, and flew fine on the 48 surpass. honestly i could go on all day with examples. I am not familiar with the cessna you mention, but i would stick the 48 in the se5a and use a 13x5 prop. This will give you plenty of thrust but help keep the speed down. The model should fly slowly, more slowly than most sport models, and it will fly with its wings not its propeller. You dont need loads of power in models like these and the 48/13x5 combo will easily give you scale performance at around half throttle. The video below is an old one of my model at my old club. I had forgotten just how old the model is now and its certainly seen some service! I have fitted a larger 15x5 prop since i flew it in this video, but its a complicated story how i ended up with that exact prop and they sadly arent available any more so 13x5 will do fine. 14x5 would probbly work too if you can find one. Beyond all that the flair se5a is a nice stable model but will require active use of rudder to coordinate turns. You need to do this manually and not mix it as there will be occasions when you need rudder and aileron in opposite directions. It takes a little practice but its not a major problem and is a useful skill to learn anyway. Models like this are very rewarding to fly once you really get the hang of it and realistically, low and slow is the name of the game.

For me its guitars. I had always been interested in music but was terrified of public performance. This was partly because public performance was forced upon me regularly at primary school and it was always a horrendous experience. I managed to get out of it once at about age 11 by flat out refusing to do it and that became my stance for the next 20+ years. To cut a very long story short i started to learn guitar over 15 years ago teaching myself as having a teacher was too much like public performance. I made some headway but in 2019 when i moved to aylesbury i soon ended up with a music teacher for a neighbour, started going to open mic and other music events. i was eventually coaxed up on stage and i now play regularly. During covid i put my model building skills into building 3 electric guitars from kits, i recently built another electric guitar from 2 planks i bought from travis perkins, and i am trying to get a band together to support events at a local pub which is now owned by the chap who ran one of the open mics. It could be said that music is now my primary hobby as i do much more of it than i do flying but that is partly due to taking a bit of a break from the hobby over the past few years. I do have too many guitars, more than my decidedly mediocre ability would suggest i need but they are nice, each is different and i do play all of them so...who cares?

This is more or less impossible with a warbird. They all have imperfections you just have to live with and learn to fly around. Its part of what makes them so appealing to me as each one has its little nuances and offers me a bit of a challenge if i want to achieve my expected standard. If it was all easy it would be boring. That isnt to say they are horribly difficult though, and some are less well behaved than others. Bf109's tend to be more problematic, as do corsairs apparently. Mustangs and Spitfires sit in the middle, P47's tend to be the most benign in my experience. No matter what though most warbirds are never in trim. They climb when fast and dive when slow. Its what they do, dont worry about it, just fly it. I would also recommend you practice using your rudder as warbirds do require more active rudder work and far more active throttle work than most sport models. Can you get away without doing it? yea kinda, but it sounds like you want to step up your flying so i would use the opportunity to learn the new skills. Much of the rudder work is cherry on top stuff, but it makes such a difference to the way the model looks in the air as the bank and yank technique is rather unbecoming. I would choose the largest model you can as the bigger ones typically handle the weight of retracts better, have flaps to help control the speed on landing, have decent size wheels to help prevent nose overs, and the retract units themselves are a little less fragile at the larger size. I fly mostly 75-90 inch and find them convenient for storage and transport in a vw golf size car. I also recommend you drill into your head a much more formalised checklist type landing approach more in line with full size practice. Its not such a big deal with foamy's, but if you have an ic warbird over about 60 inch then you cant really just whip them round and throw them at the runway. They wont appreciate it and a more formal circuit to land giving you at least half a minute to get everything configured is very strongly recommended. This will get the model to the end of the runway at the right height and speed meaning you only have the flare to worry about. Trying to force a model down onto retracts is a shortcut to a repair bill. As my old gliding instructor once told me, the landing is done at the start of the circuit and not the end. Rates. Whatever the kit/artf recommends for elevator rate i would forget the high rate, use the low as high and maybe halve it for a more realistic low in the air. Most warbirds are extremely pitch sensitive and the elevator rate you need will be tiny. As i have said many times, i can loop my 80 inch sea fury using about 3mm of elevator deflection. This method also has the added advantage of allowing you to favour a more rearward c/g which aids ground handling and still gives you a stable model in the air. More generally warbird flying is about doing as little as possible. Just let the thing fly and use a minimum of guidance to get it to go where you want it to go. You might be 'busy' with countless small inputs all the time, but they are tiny nudges and nothing more. If you go in expecting to wring its neck you are unlikely to have a great time. As an example if i want to roll my sea fury (a proper slow barrel roll down the length of the runway) it might take 30 seconds or more to complete the manoeuver as i need to plan the one before it to leave me in the right part of the sky, then set up, run in, do the thing, run out. Admittedly the roll itself is about 500ft long but with run in and out i guess i use twice that distance. The point is to take your time with all of it and just enjoy watching it go by. 'Had'....yea im still angry about that. The worst model i think i have ever flown. I have been gifted one to experiment with as its previous owner got tired of its nonsense. if i have any joy ill let you know.

7700-8000 but 20x6 is the prop of choice for anything that used to fly with a gypsy engine

theres no need. peak rpm then go for it. Is it really 28lbs? That seems extremely high for a 1/4 tiger. I know there is loads of detail but im surprised its that high. I would still expect the 200 to fly it though and i would use a 20x6, but i suspect performance would be scale and nothing more.

That is pretty poor as i would expect that sort of rpm from 20x6 props. If you were still running the 2.5 turns you mentioned earlier its likely the engine was very rich, although at 2.5 turns i would almost be surprised the thing ran at all. How heavy did the model end up?

Yes, they are identical. Not sure who can send spares to NZ, but now sanye are making engines again i assume spares availability will increase. I know ali express have engines for sale, maybe they will do spares as well.

Having engines rotate in opposite directions is fairly pointless on models in my experience. Having operated a half dozen twins and a 4 engine herc i never had any trouble with torque on takeoff. On paper its a good idea, and it might even be measurably better, but in practical terms its not important as our models accelerate so fast the rudder becomes effective almost immediately and then its plain sailing. When it comes to the full size P38/Mosquito chat...where to begin. The mossie was notorious for ground swing and i think later Mk's with the Merlin 60 series engines did gain counter rotating props but i would need to double check as i cant remember. While technically this statement might not be wrong it very much misses the point and is extremely disrespectful. Asking a 19 year old with only a few hundred flying hours under his belt to handle a machine as powerful and complicated as a P38 is no small request. In the Battle of Britain some pilots had barely a handful of hours on their Spitfires or Hurricanes and were pretty meagre opposition to combat veteran luftwaffe pilots. The same was true in the Battle of France where the BEF was more or less wiped out for a variety of reasons mostly related to lack of experience. In the Pacific experienced Japanese pilots wiped the floor with American P40's and P39's operated by inexperienced pilots. But then the tides turned later in the war and it was the allies with the experienced pilots and axis forces suffering with inexperienced pilots. In any case, to say they werent good pilots is not fair and does not provide the proper context.