Jump to content
Please be aware of scammers when using the Sale/Wanted forum areas

Andy Stephenson

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    1,640

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    1

 Content Type 

Everything posted by Andy Stephenson

  1. Andy Stephenson
    Martin, I have done a search for Falcon and Skincrylic and can't find anything, do you have a link to the supplier. There was some discussion about it in this other thread from 2009 but this didn't lead to a supplier either. https://www.modelflying.co.uk/forums/postings.asp?th=33054 Thanks, Andy.
  2. Andy Stephenson
    The Futaba default for throttle control is in reverse for ESCs. Simply reversing it will fix this issue but there is a menu option which changes the power control from "Throttle" to "Motor" which I believe reverses this function so it's compatible with the convention of most ESCs. There may be other benefits to this but I haven't checked these out. A.
  3. Andy Stephenson
    Just spray the plan with WD40 to make it transparent enough to see it from the back. The best thing about using WD40 is that when it dries out it completely disappears and leaves your plan as new. A.
  4. Andy Stephenson
    Starting off as a schoolboy in the 60s with small diesels using floppy plastic props (there weren't any GF re-enforced ones back then) if you got your finger in the prop it hurt like hell but did no permanent damage. This was an object lesson for the future to respect the propeller which has stood me in good stead in avoiding injuries. When I am training student pilots these days I make a point of talking about prop safety as I don't think there is enough in the manuals on this subject. A.
  5. Andy Stephenson
    If I turn on the ad blocker I can confirm exactly the same thing happens with that overlapping text. I have it turned off on this site because the ads aren't intrusive and it also blanks out some videos which are not ads just those posted by users. A.
  6. Andy Stephenson
    Jon, That one looks like one made specially to handle glow fuel, whereas most of the others are just windscreen washer pumps. This is why so many of the fail due to the methanol but particularly the nitro when they are only designed for washer fluid. A.
  7. Andy Stephenson
    I built my Acrowot in 1986, in those days the kit came with a Dural U/C and nylon bolts. It wasn't long before a landing took it off. The result was that the U/C rolled around under the wings and the wheels left two large dents. I decided to use metal bolts after that and it never came off again. This was the original kit version and I must have built the mounting strongly enough to withstand anything I did to it from then on. ARTF models seem to suffer from lack of strength in this area all too often. The problem with models that have an U/C made from a 2 dimensional material is that there is no fore and aft spring it's all up and down. This is where wire U/Cs come into their own as there is a component of rearward give when the plane comes down hard on a resistive surface. Wire U/Cs rule! A.
  8. Andy Stephenson
    Posted by Andy Joyce on 14/06/2020 17:36:58: Given the Seagull balsa (what left of it) is like soft butter used Eze Kote to harden the surface. Well impressed by that product and was tempted to continue to use it and cover the model in light weight cloth. However cost would be significant given I think I paid £17 for a bottle... Andy, I have found that Dulux Diamond Glaze is very similar to EzeKote and a lot cheaper. You do have to buy 1litre minimum at about £40 but if you price EasyKote by the litre it works out at £226. Diamond Hard glaze is available in gloss and satin also in various tints. It can be thinned with water to make it go further. A. Edited By Andy Stephenson on 15/06/2020 11:10:15
  9. Andy Stephenson

    Andy Stephenson posted a gallery image in Member Albums

  10. Andy Stephenson
    A lot of the older engines had no facility for R/C throttle but more importantly they used sub-piston-induction. This is where the skirt of the piston rises above the edge of the exhaust port to draw air directly into the crankcase. These engines were never designed to have silencers in an era when noise wasn't the problem as it is today. Putting any kind of muffler on an engine with SPI ruins the performance because instead of air, exhaust fumes are drawn in during SPI part of the cycle. If you were to add a throttle to an SPI engine it probably wouldn't have worked very well as the carb doesn't control all of the air supply. For reliable running but a classic smell and sound of diesel I would recommend PAW engines which allow for throttling and muffling. A.
  11. Andy Stephenson
    Posted by Dickw on 14/06/2020 12:26:22: Thanks for posting that video Peter. I was a regular competitor (and camper) at the Nationals in the 60s but never saw any of that because I was always at the CL combat circles with my mates. Nice to catch up with what I missed at last! I do remember the evening "free for alls" - great fun. Dick At Hullavington I saw C/L combat for the first time and it was the best spectator sport at the Nats. They were going all out, no-holds-barred and damn the damage. Some of the competitors had long trailers containing racks of may be a dozen models in various states of readiness from fully rigged down to bare airframes. Then there was the thwack of a combat model going into the turf at full bore and the pit man hauling it out, wiping off the mud and hitting the prop and throwing it again all in one movement, best entertainment. A.   Edited By Andy Stephenson on 14/06/2020 14:13:47
  12. Andy Stephenson
    From the Daily Mail this morning... Couple who were wrongly arrested over Gatwick drone that sparked three day of Christmas flight chaos in 2018 receive £200,000 in compensation Rush to judgement much? A. Edited By Andy Stephenson on 14/06/2020 13:47:14
  13. Andy Stephenson
    After trying several types of glow fuel pump and some of them twice or more, This is the best type so far. I have seen other fliers use one of these for decades trouble-free. The advice is to mount the pump with the motor uppermost so if the fuel leaks through the seals it can't reach the brushes in the motor and clag it up. https://www.jperkins.com/products/6631300 A.
  14. Andy Stephenson
    Sorry Phil, My memory is a bit hazy, numbers remembered incorrectly, perhaps you should use names like with the glow fuels. Anyway which ever is the middle one of the 3 that's the one I would use. Andy.
  15. Andy Stephenson
    The PAW .55cc R/C is a great engine. It throttles well and there is a silencer available for it. Is best run on Model Techniques D1500 fuel. I designed a 36" sticks and tissue mini Panic for the .55 which flew well at 14Oz. Diesels are a bit of an art to get running nicely as it's a balance between mixture and compression adjustment but well worth it when run-in. I would say the DC Dart is a bit outdated with no R/C throttle or silencer available, its from the 1960s when all landings were all dead-stick and no one worried about noise. A.
  16. Andy Stephenson
    Oops double post! Edited By Andy Stephenson on 12/06/2020 11:20:24
  17. Andy Stephenson
    We used to do a lot of aerotowing and we always attached the tow point above the CoG on top of the wing. This is the point at which the glider can have the least affect on the attitude of the tug due to being too high or low relative to the tug. Also the tail had wires between the fin and tips of the tailplane to prevent the tow line from snagging on the tailplane. this arrangement worked just fine. I remember seeing a short film that was made by Jim Davis/Dave Wright and club mates that showed a very early attempt at aerotowing where wires were fitted to swivels at the wing tips of a low winger. The wires came to a point behind the tail where the tow was attached. This arrangement meant that the tug could be in any attitude completely unaffected by the glider. I wonder if anyone has used this system.
  18. Andy Stephenson
    Peter, David Hall seems to have hit the nail on the head, you should try what he says before doing anything else. A.
  19. Andy Stephenson
    Barrie, PM sent. Cheers, Andy.
  20. Andy Stephenson
    Posted by Barrie Lever on 06/06/2020 12:17:54: Andy ... I would give John a call, email and the Internet are not his thing, failing that let me know what you want and I will track him down. ... Regards Barrie Barrie, I would have preferred to send you a PM but I guess you have this turned off on your account. I have had no response from Flitehook after leaving phone messages, can you ask John if he is still able to fill orders for balsa etc. I have already listed my requirements on the contact page of his website although I have subsequently thought of a few other things I need to add. Any help in this matter would be greatly appreciated. Andy.
  21. Andy Stephenson
    Posted by Nigel Heather on 05/06/2020 19:04:02: Recently, when I wanted the plan for the Ohmen from the October 2018 edition, initially I was pointed towards Sarik but then I had the idea of checking eBay. Found sellers with a large range of mint copies of magazines complete with plans. Was able to buy the magazine with plan very cheaply. To give you an idea, Sarik charges £16.50 plus p&p for the plan but I was able to buy the magazine for £4.99. Maybe I was lucky but worth checking first. Cheers, Nigel I think the reason Sarik charge what they do for plans is that they have to transfer the old ones from a Dyeline transparency to an electronic copy and then, old or new, all printed on a large format laser printer. In comparison Magazine pull-out plans are printed on inferior paper and sometimes double-sided so they will fit in the centrefold. A.   Edited By Andy Stephenson on 06/06/2020 13:18:18
  22. Andy Stephenson
    I hadn't seen this before, I just tried it and searched for 57mm spinner, I must say the results are impressively specific. Bookmarked at the top of my suppliers list. Thanks, Andy.
  23. Andy Stephenson
    Barrie, Many thanks, I hadn't heard about Pauline. I hope John is still doing OK, I used to see him at the indoor meetings which I haven't attended for a while. The quality of his balsa seems second to none and I am keen to use it on my next project. I left a telephone message yesterday to follow-up after completing the online form on his website. I will give it a few more days to see if he gets back to me. I don't like to think I would be hounding him if he's not trading so much these days. I will see how it goes and may get back to you if you think you can help. Cheers, Andy.
  24. Andy Stephenson
    Posted by Tosh McCaber on 06/06/2020 12:07:24: Does anyone know whether Monocote is still in production? Tosh, Monocote is very much an American product and it's availability in the UK seems to be limited at best. It may be because it's expensive plus all the cost of importing it makes it not particularly viable. I remember someone calling it "Moneycote" because it would have been cheaper to cover your model with fivers. A.
  25. Andy Stephenson
    Once I had discovered Oracover AKA Profilm I never went back to Solarfilm. As hard as I tried to follow the instructions, Solarfilm eventually always sagged and not necessarily in hot weather, time also caused it to go slack. Applying it needed careful temperature control to prevent melting and trying to iron out creases never came out well. Oracover, on the other hand, had none of these problems. This is probably why Solarfilm as a company went the way they did. Oracover is expensive but a good alternative is the Hobbyking film if you can get it. Easycote is cheapo Oracover and sometime sold as seconds with minor imperfections. It has the disadvantage of being not very opaque and covering a laser cut model with it will show all the black marks on the cut edges. Andy.
×
×
  • Create New...