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Martin McIntosh

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Posts posted by Martin McIntosh

  1. You cannot solder to galvanised steel so would probably need an abrasive wheel or something. Same applies to zinc plated push rods. On steel, always use a mild, none corrosive plumbers flux (Wickes) since the stuff in multicore is not really strong enough.

  2. It is almost always due to lousy, sloppy linkages, especially with those awful strip ailerons from the days of expensive servos and systems which could not cope as well  as today with two aileron ones.

  3. Yes, when I spoke about YS and plugs I was not talking about a day to day cooking engine like a Merco maybe, but a powerful job designed to do a particular task on high nitro, which they do very well; just wish that I could get cheaper plugs. Ordered a couple of OS F ones from ebay at £28 for spares since I have a lot of four stroke motors.

  4. I can understand your frustration. If the tips are iron coated you must never file this off; always use a damp sponge to clean them after making every joint.

    Antex are old hat and not temperature controlled but can be used for PCB work. Wellers with or without a soldering station are pretty good but in my professional days it had to be Metcal ( look at £250+ though). The temperature is controlled by the size/type of tip used. With a high temperature one of just 3mm width I can easily solder two pieces of 6 swg wire together using some extra, non corrosive flux.

  5. At one time they marketed OSF plugs under their own name. I run those motors on the same plug up to the point when the idle seems mis tuned. No need to mess with it, just change the plug. Mind you, I used to buy a card of twelve from Probuild for about £2.50 each.

  6. E.Doc, I cannot recollect an OSF blowing, they just lose their brightness due to the material deteriorating. Happens to any plug. YS advised replacement every 20 flights for this reason.

    I know that we are supposed to store models with the head facing up to prevent fuel (oil) from attacking the plugs but this is rarely practical.

    The plugs in my case had all seen a lot of use.

  7. My home spun plug voltage regulators run at either 1.25 or 1.4V, switchable, so on 1.4V the plugs should have been brighter. Past experience taught me that some motors (OS 2 strokes) get through plugs like a house on fire when inverted.

    May change the higher setting to 1.5V and see what happens.

  8. I no longer get emails for replies, despite ticking the usual box. The message about preferences having been changed does not stay on very long. I am using the site in my usual way, so any ideas please?

  9. I meant Enya 3 of course, not 8. Confusing them with the similar OS 8.

    The reason I ask about alternatives is because although my inverted Lasers run fine, they are a devil to start at first. This was due to the plugs not fully heating to burn off the oil so I used up my last three OS f`s which cured the problem.

    £14.99 a pop is now getting ridiculous.

  10. Yes, it was the very expensive Wavefront laser treatment. I put it off for a long time before I plucked up enough courage to go.

    When I contacted what I thought was Ultralase to get re treated they told me to get a prescription. Specsavers said that further laser work would not be possible with cataracts but `Ultralase` said they could remove those, which would destroy the previous laser correction, and re laser at the same time. It was then that they quoted £7000 and informed me that the original company no longer existed. I told them what they could do with it.

  11. I had my eyes done at Ultralase 13 years ago to give me stereo distance vision without varifocals at £500 a pop every two years. Great until about 9 months ago when my right eye totally failed for distance but I could easily read a paper with it without specs! Contacted Ultralase which gave a lifetime guarantee only to be told that the original company had gone into admin. in 2013. How convenient for them to not honour warrantees any more, despite still trading under the same name.

    Went to Specsavers where I was pleased to get two pairs of distance and two of reading glasses at £69 per two pairs. However, they said that cataracts were stating to form but come back in twelve months for a check.

    I am now fairly confident to resume flying.

  12. Acetone is great for cleaning up glue nozzles and pins but only if in an airtight jar and it takes quite a while. It also eventually works on rock hard epoxy brushes and mixing pots. Get it on ebay in a 5l bottle, sold as nail varnish remover. For joints which you need to take apart then the Toolstation etc stuff works but you need to be patient as it can take an hour or so and will need to be re applied occasionally.

  13. Yes quite. I ended up with very small SLEC tanks but luckily the motors were very frugal. I also had to contend with cells and switches to ensure that the plugs kept glowing at idle. Cannot remember if I used Herts Models intelligent glow switches or a purely mechanical switch set up.

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