Shed Heater

 Hi John

I think you need a new section on the blog for other projects. The furnace should probably go in there as well.

Here are some photos of my waste oil heater total cost of around $100. it burns hotter than the fires of hell. Credit is due to Sloth Industries as Jason built the first and showed me how good it worked. I believe he will send some photos of his. They are easy to build and now its built costs $0.00 to run, just waste oil from any service station or any oil for that matter. Most places cant wait to get rid of it.

?What to do next?

Regards Owen

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Not much plane wise has been happening here at Sloth industries or at OTech engineering for a while.

However....

I have managed to make another FAI Armageddon flying wing to replace the damaged one, with all our upgrades. 

In the mean time i have managed to build myself, after some time studying youtube, a waste oil burner for the shed.

The heater costs to run are FREE, FREE, FREE

I have found a workshop that has plenty of engine oil that i can have for FREE. I have a 44 gallon drum out the back of the shed that feeds oil through the wall into the heater. approx 200hrs of FREE heat.

The shed gets that hot I have to open the door to let some FREE heat out.

It uses about 1-1.5 litres an hour and cost me $150.00 to make and install.

It's made of a Falcon brake disc, stuffed hot water cylinder, stainless wok bowl from the kitchen, and a pyrex dish for a view of the fire (If you can see the flame it makes it hotter.) some of the bits come from the salvo shop ($6.00)

Most of the cost is from the 5 inch pipe out the flue and the 6 inch adaptor, had to buy some copper pipe, fittings, tap, hoses, adaptors and roof boot thing. Had the lengths of flue laying around and a chinaman hat too.

It has a designer door handle (OTech supplied).

So even though not much plane building has been going on, there is plenty of other to make the building process more enjoyable and very possibly lasting longer into the night.

If anybody else feels inspired to build one (I know of one already) go to this website and build                                                                                        www.love2diy.com

Cheers

Jason

Flapper

Arthur Hume's rebuilt "Flapper" was test flown yesterday. It started life as an Aeroflyte Typhoon but earned the name "Flapper" because the wings "flapped" on one of its early flights.

Expertly repaired by Arthur (you can hardly see where it was damaged), it now has a new life as a racer, it seems.  Powered by an OS .15 LA, it has not been timed yet but looks to go faster than any of the Rat racers in Townsville. The look on the pilot's face gives you some idea of how fast it goes.
It's good to see Arthur's painting skills improving.

Avenger

Alan Beggs recently decided to give his 15 year old Aeroflyte Avenger a final flight before retiring it. It was originally built by Neil Wincen (deceased) and has had a hard life.

The engine bearers are so fuel soaked and soft Alan reckons if you squeezed the bearers hard enough you would reclaim enough fuel for another flight. And the model is so heavy he was considering getting a Large Model Inspection before flying it. He told me he had to use 12 gauge fencing wire for control lines.

                                                      At least it gets to retire in one piece.

Four Square

Alan Beggs sent in these pics of his just recently finished 1955 vintage model, the FOUR SQUARE, designed by Tony Farnan. It's powered by a Burford Glow Chief .29.  Test flight next weekend, hopefully.

Alan has test flown his 4 Square and is very pleased with it, although its a bit fast. At 1.75 lbs it "floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee".
He put it through some maneouvres but blink and you would miss them. As it is, it would make a great vintage combat model but needs to be slowed down considerably to be a stunt model.

FOX 29-R

I got this email from Peter Somers in Perth, Western Australia. I thought it might be of general interest.


Hi Guys,

    We all had some questions on the ancestry of this Fox which I found on eBay. None of us have seen the solid cylinder head, for instance, and whether it should be sand cast or not is another question. 

At least it does have the twin glow-plug set up, which we all know about on this type, and the solid head shows the same casting marks as the backplate, showing that the head appears to be a genuine piece.

I looked it up for myself in Anderson's MECOA Blue Book. Turns out one George Moir built T-R specials for Fox in 1950 ( Fox 29R )which looked conventional in a sand cast case, with a thick head and ported crankshaft etc. Moir became an employee when Fox Mfg. moved to Arkansas in 1955 and worked with another fella named Payton (?) on the .29's.

He soon turned out the first of the racing 29-R nasties in 1956, and this motor is one of those. Sand cast case, FOX 29-R on the bypass housing and the Legendary "Bath Tub" intake. 

In the following year this production was taken over by and within the Fox Works, and the cylinder head was now finned. This is the motor we first saw I believe, in the  "Aeromodeller" Engine Tests. What a blast..!

Before long Fox had found the twin plugs caused overheating, so recalled the 2-plug heads both solid and finned, for replacement by a finned 1-plug head, although this was not of course compulsory.

So here we have a near 60 year-old relic of the past with an even more interesting history than I imagined. How many would be left out there with the solid head, one can only guess but it would be very few.

The pics which were on eBay are attached below. I must have got it as a bargain since few know what it is; but the Blue Book quotes + - $300 US.

- 

Best Regards, 

from Peter Somers.....

"I still know nothing, but I've learned it all from experts"...