Andy Stephenson

I made quite a deep a cowl for a patternship by taking the original ABS one and filling it and sanding it to a fine finish with filler primer. I cast this in 2 part silicone supported in a plywood box as the silicone sets quite floppy. This resulted in a negative mould. After several attempts and some success I found the combination of the first layer (outer) 81g twill GF with the second one of 180g this gave the best results. I used a good quality laminating epoxy. You can't actually paint a gel coat on to silicone as it doesn't stick. I layered overlapping strips of GF and stippled on the epoxy with a brush then using a miniature roller on a long handle I rolled the epoxy through the weave to give a smooth surface when set. To de-mould the cowl I removed the silicone from the supporting box, peeled it away round the edges and with some soapy water eased it out.

For large models I see more R/Cers using Powerbox as a redundancy system, it's more sophisticated than using a split RX setup, I'm not sure how it works but there is some processing going on to decide if a signal from one or another RX is getting corrupted. It does a lot more besides and is expensive so it may be outside your budget. A.

Acetone is a good solvent but it's ineffective on epoxy, cellulose thinners is what you need. A.

If an OS engine has a ringed piston leave it as it is because the plating on a so called ABC regularly flakes on OS engines. My OS 46FX had this problem twice as did my 1980s OS61RF. I still want to use it on a classic pattern-ship which is why I signed up to have a proper ABC replacement piston and liner made for it. There is a thread on RCG that invited people to sign up to a list for a guy in Australia who produces these. There are about 50 names on the list, I think this says it all about the nickel plating that OS uses. A.

Andrew, Try shaming HH on RC Groups this forum has international coverage. A.

SR71, How about this, a model with twice as many engines as you are considering... 12 engine Dornier A.

SR71, dag241 on RCGroups tried to make a giant scale B-36 but if I read his posts correctly he gave up in the end after spending inordinate amounts of time and effort. May be you should wade through his 900 odd pages of posts to see where he went wrong, I think it came down to just making it too big to take the strain... https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?933242-257-B-36D-Scratch-Build-6-a-turning-and-4-a-burning&highlight=b36 Have fun. A.

The problem I find with the general electronic component suppliers is that the toggle switches they offer don't match up with the circuit board in the Futaba TX. The switch you need has the pins offset to one side of the body. The ones in the catalogues of the correct electrical type all seem to have the pins in the centre. The pins also have to be the square peg type. All this means that unless you can trawl all the suppliers to find the exact type that Futaba uses in their designs, the easiest way is to cough-up the money and order the genuine part. A.

Rich, I guess you would need to take the plans to a print shop where they have a large format scanner and get them to save it to a PDF file in a reasonably high resolution. Then submit it to the Outerzone. Andy.

A club mate is trying to find plan for the original Ripmax Trainer, does anyone have a one to sell, lend or copy. Thanks, Andy.

There's nothing basically wrong with HS81s that twitch only on switch-on, providing they don't continue to after the sticks are moved. It's entirely a power-up issue.

HS 81 servos don't play well Futaba receivers at switch-on. I find they jitter until I move the sticks, then they are perfectly OK. It's something in the way the servo perceives the power-up and control pulse at the same time. I have noticed this going back to 35MHz PCM receivers but never had a problem flying those servos. A.

Given pitch has a roughly linear relation to the volume of air moved and the area of sweep of a prop is proportional the square of the diameter, the rule of thumb I use is 1 on diameter is worth 2 on pitch for the same shaft load at the motor/engine. A.

I have used Sundeala glued to a piece of 19mm thick MDF which keeps it flat enough. The stuff is expensive enough but the best alternative to this is a 2' x 4' suspended ceiling tile which appears to be the same as Sundeala. I don't know how expensive they are because it was given to me by a builder friend. If you can buy them singly I bet they are cheaper though.

Journos are all arts educated and therefore no nothing about science or engineering and the correct units the physical world in measured in.

I have just just surfed all the iron-on covering materials on HK, all but a few of the least attractive colours are in stock. The website is not the quickest but I am not experiencing the slow speeds some are complaining about. I use a Firefox on a desktop PC. I have had an "alert me" request on some colours of film hanging around for months and still nothing yet. HK could at least stock a few of the staple modelling products then they could generate some turnover. I would buy for stock like most who build models not available in ARTF form. I used to use Profilm but the price is now astronomic, other available films are inferior and what looks like the HK films on AliExpress etc are only available in limited colours. If this goes on for much longer I will be exploring alternative perhaps even traditional finishing techniques. A.

I read somewhere there will be a phone app available to check CAA numbers, which seems to mean that you would be required to carry some sort of ID. A.

Jon, This was on a 150 and I only reamed the deposits by hand and no metal was removed as a result of my taking this advice. I also I believe this was only a partial solution but the best that could be achieved mechanically. Andy.

this will mostly work but you end up drilling through the baffle as well so you end up with more noise. the best bet is to never let it get all grotty in the first place by not using any castor Jon, Neil was not suggesting that the drill went any further in than would ream out the coke in the tail pipe, certainly not through any metal inside the silencer. This was a while ago before he changed to recommending synthetic fuels, although the some still have a small proportion of castor and create carbon deposits. Andy.

Don, You are absolutely correct about using a tail skid, I have built several Panics and none of them ever needed a steerable tail wheel although just take it easy if taking off on tarmac they tend to skitter a bit. Use some toe-in on the main wheels to stabilise the take-off run. Andy.

The Winterton special is a very early Panic, you can tell by the centre flap and the tapered ailerons on the top wing. You can't see in the picture but if the bottom wing has dihedral it's probably one of the first Avicraft kits which had an engine suggestion of .45 size. A.

Phone calls purporting from both Visa and Mastercard are surely a scam, whoever heard of both those companies working together.

I use the rule of thumb that 1 on diameter = 2 on pitch when it comes to prop load at normal RPM. There are significant differences between makes, for instance I find APC props to be more efficient than Master Airscrew, the black ones with the white tips. Graupner props which are a similar to MA props are nearly as good as APC so you can't tell just bu looking at the shape. A.

Posted by trebor on 14/12/2017 18:23:24: I'll start this off then ! Can you take the end of the silencer to clean the inside out or is it pressed in ? Ps Thanks for the advise earlier and I'll post a picture of the engines after I've finished cleaning I forgot the worst bits the silencers Trebor, When I asked Neil Tidy how to clean a Laser silencer, he said to put a 3/8" drill down the tail pipe and drill out the crud. Andy.

Anthony, I found the same thin when I tried Flair Spectrum clear which was supposed to be fuel-proof. I think the only fully fuel-proof clear would be a two part one like this... https://www.carcolourservices.co.uk/product/pro2kclear-500ml-2k-clear-lacquer/ Has anyone had experience of this? Andy.