Your ENGIN-EAR reply will happily free flight back
to you if you include a self addressed, stamped
envelope and print your given and family name
underneath your signature. Send the lot to:–
Brian Winch, 33 Hillview Pde, Lurnea NSW 2170.
If you want to contact me by the electronic jelly bean
machine, use [email protected] but don’t
jam my mailbox with large photo files and the like.
STICKING LIKE ‘STUFF’ TO A
BLANKET
A modeller rang me to ask if I could check out his
almost new medium size O.S. engine that had suffered a pain in the carburettor. The pain was due to
the model hitting a tree and the injury sustained was
a carburettor broken off, leaving the broken remains
of the insert spigot in the engine manifold - complete
with the two retaining screws. All the bits of metal
were retrieved - mainly as an interest as the modeller spoke about purchasing a new carburettor. The
modeller was a bit new to the hobby, not really flush
in the finance department and I had an idea. From
several previous experiences, that the cost of the
new carby plus a little for my service might just go
over the edge of what the modeller was prepared to
layout considering that it was a new engine with extremely low mileage. Quite often a disappointment
like this is enough to change the desires of the modeller to take up something less expensive - like golf
(there’s a laugh) or even worse still, convert to the
dreaded electric stuff and listen to the singing canary
every time he plugs the battery in. (One day I will
find a deadly seed to feed those bloody canaries
that will choke the bludgers). Anyway, I carried out
a very close examination and found no distortion in
the manifold or the broken bits so all the bits fitted
together very nicely. I contacted the modeller and
suggested that I glue the carby spigot bits together,
fix it back into the engine and secure it with a high
temperature metal epoxy. Not as pretty as the engine was when new but - functional and a considerable reduction in the final cost - quite considerable.
If the job wasn’t successful a bit of applied heat
would remove the epoxy and the job would go back
to taws. The modeller was extremely pleased with
the suggestion and gave me the go-ahead and here
is where we delve into a few matters cyanoacrylate.
particular day I saw a brand new Holden V8 engine
delivered and put down just inside the door. A workman was up a ladder installing some heavy duty retaining