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Author Topic: How to give a standard Babe Bee stunt capabilities  (Read 2586 times)

Offline Robert McHam

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How to give a standard Babe Bee stunt capabilities
« on: June 07, 2007, 01:59:06 AM »
Boy I wish I had thought of this years ago! It would have meant more then than now but maybe this hint could help someone still today.

I don't have the materials on hand to make this up just yet, so maybe some other brave soul can do this and provide a picture to illustrate. My camera would never show such small detail even if I had one already made up.

I will do my best to describe:
This applies to standard cast Babe Bee and Pee Wee tank backs.
Take a short length of fuel tubing to be used as a connector to the filler tube and also a piece of brass or aluminum tubing carefully bent int a "U" shape with (as close as I can figure) a 5/32" radius. Pretty tight but I know it can be done with the right size tubing. A rigid plastic tube could also do as long as the plastic is fuel proof. One end of this tube should extend to the bottom of the tank. Of course you would need two of these, one for each side.

I know there are other ways but this particular method could be done with a minimum of special tools and expertice and would not harm the actual engine or any of its parts. Not that there is a severe shortage, but as for myself I do not have a large enough stockpile of tanks that I could drill a hole into or skeletonise as I have seen others do. I have thought to many times but cannot bring myself to do it!

Hopefully this idea might be able to use a standard Babe Bee in a plane that can be flown upside down for more than 15 or 20 seconds!

Robert
Crop circles are simply open invitations to fly C/L!

Offline Jim Thomerson

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Re: How to give a standard Babe Bee stunt capabilities
« Reply #1 on: June 07, 2007, 08:16:29 AM »
I haven't tried this but it might work.  Take piece of small fuel line and run it from one vent to the other passing under the tank,  Make a small hole in the fuel line under the tank.  Not my original idea.

Offline Larry Renger

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Re: How to give a standard Babe Bee stunt capabilities
« Reply #2 on: June 07, 2007, 09:39:39 AM »
The classic way is extremely simple.  Take a piece of fuel hose, go from one vent, around the bottom of the tank to the other.  Cut a hole in the tubing exactly at the center bottom.  You are done.  No tanks are harmed in this process.   #^  For longer runs on stunt vented tanks, you can use an external wedge tank, run the fuel hose to either filler tube, and cap the other one.  Fill the engine's tank, then the wedge tank.  The engine will empty the wedge first, then draw it's air through that one into the integral tank.  Again no harm, no foul.
Think S.M.A.L.L. y'all and, it's all good, CL, FF and RC!

DesignMan
 BTW, Dracula Sucks!  A closed mouth gathers no feet!

Offline Robert McHam

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Re: How to give a standard Babe Bee stunt capabilities
« Reply #3 on: June 07, 2007, 10:24:46 AM »
Larry, thanks I had actually forgotten about that method! I had tried it myself years ago  and while the idea of course is perfectly sound, I could not make it work for me because  I guess I had the wrong kind of tubing. All I had available to me then was the Perfect brand for which I was perfectly happy with except to do this particular modification.
My problem was that the tubing would not stay on the nipple. That is unless you made it rediculessly (sp) long. Then it just got in the way of everything and looked dorky.

Keep in mind that I was just a kid then and had not thought of maybe heating the tubing in hot water to help shape it (the Perfect brand was pretty stiff in cooler weather). That may have been what I needed to do.

I do remember (now) that I had bought a whole two feet of this tubing thinking that would be plenty and before I was done I had it all in a bunch of odd size pieces and it would be a month or more before I could get back to the LHS.  :( The tubing of course did not go to waste but I was pretty bummed out with my efforts.

The "U" shaped brass tubing I mentioned must have come from those old supressed memories trying to aleviate the side pressure of the fuel tubing. Keep it straight and it won't twist off.

I don't recall ever putting the vent hole in any of those pieces that I tried...  Could be I didn't want to poke a hole in an otherwise perfectly good piece of fuel line unless it would stay like it should.
 
Robert 

 
Crop circles are simply open invitations to fly C/L!

Offline Wayne Collier

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Re: How to give a standard Babe Bee stunt capabilities
« Reply #4 on: June 07, 2007, 04:23:24 PM »
Read about a guy who drilled a hole in the back of the fuel tank, passed the tubing from the internal nipple through the tank back and through the firewall to a tank inside the fuselage.  No externally visible fuel line.  Plenty of capacity and stunt capability.
Wayne Collier     Northeast Texas
<><

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Offline minnesotamodeler

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Re: How to give a standard Babe Bee stunt capabilities
« Reply #5 on: June 07, 2007, 07:26:27 PM »
Here's the simple way.  Forget the integral tank, it's too small anyhow.

This is an .020 PeeWee but would work as well on a Babe Bee.

--Ray
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Offline Larry Renger

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Re: How to give a standard Babe Bee stunt capabilities
« Reply #6 on: June 07, 2007, 08:04:11 PM »
What on earth is that crud on your engine?  Balsa dust?

Anyway, yes, that works, but if you have destroyed the integety of the tank with a hole in it , you might as wel "Spidrize" it by cutting away more of the metal.  Done well, it looks like one of those old Thermal Hopper mounts!
Think S.M.A.L.L. y'all and, it's all good, CL, FF and RC!

DesignMan
 BTW, Dracula Sucks!  A closed mouth gathers no feet!

Offline minnesotamodeler

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Re: How to give a standard Babe Bee stunt capabilities
« Reply #7 on: June 08, 2007, 04:11:39 PM »
Yeah, looks nasty, doesn't it?  It's balsa sanding dust.  I forgot the thing was sitting there and didn't cover the engine while sanding something else. I shoulda cleaned it up before I shot the picture but remember it is an .020, that's a real close closeup, in normal vision you can hardly see any dust on it.  See the "normal vision" below, shot at the same time.

I like that, "destroy the integrity of the tank".  Seems like I got that tank from you, didn't I?  With the hole already in it?  Anyway, I felt the same way at first but the stock tanks are pretty much worthless when you think about it, too small for more than a couple minutes' run, won't feed well inverted, tend to leak...butcher 'em, I say!  Since I was shown the above integrity-less fuel system works, I'm a True Believer.

--Ray
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Roseville MN (St. Paul suburb, Arctic Circle)
AMA902472


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