Anger/fuel-need help in So.Cal..

friends
You ever need something for stunt and you go to the local hobby shop and the behind the counter expert tells you-"just use what we have its all the same"!!!!Boy you "CL guys"!!!It happens with fuel, w/me anyhow....I need 5% 22oil content/mixed...Plese don't tell me to order from somewhere across the country,,I need fuel for the weekend flying--In So. Cal-LA area, aside from Naccratto-He has none...Where can I get fuel?????Covina has none>>>only Omega-kool-aid fuels--Where is the stash of Powermaster-or Sig fuel in the area?????It happens W/dope too..Just use Aero Gloss-dope is dope!!!!Thanks DAvid....

LAST EDITED ON Nov-09-04 AT 06:27 PM (CDT)
 
My LHS here in the UK (the Guy has a small engine collection behind the counter) sold me 10% oil (8% synth 2% castor) for a Fox 35........

These guys have SO lost touch with things....

'Didn't know anybody still flew c/l'

I was talking to him one day and this guy of the street comes in and says 'I want a toy helicopter for my son's birthday' - the shop owners eyes lit up (like the old cartoons were $ signs ring up in th characters eyes) and our conversation was over....

Hey David,

I can't help you find fuel in the LA. area as I live in Ohio (Saw snow yesterday, but I got 5 patterns in today).

I've found when I can not find CL type fuel I use RC fuel doctored up.
I've used up over 30 gallons of Byron's 10% Nitro, 20 % oil with 8 oz. of oil added. My OS LA .40s & LA .46s run great on this mix.

Already mixed CL fuel is cheaper then RC fuel & extra oil added.
Fly or don't fly. I choose fly.

Pat
I appreciate your response--I also understand your logic too...However, I have experimented with Omega fuels/RC stuff which I can readily get, and it has not been consistent..The runs are to erratic for me--(I added oil to the mixture to)..The motor is very much set up to run on 5% nitro with 22% oil content synt/cast..Especially. in cooler weather...I do not like using "gaskets" in motors, I could put 2 gaskets in the AT 36 and run 10% nitro, I choose not to..I spoke W/T. Naccarotti, he has Sig on order for next week!! Does not help me now,,Thanks David

>friends
>You ever need something for stunt and you go to the local
>hobby shop and the behind the counter expert tells you-"just
>use what we have its all the same"!!!!Boy you "CL guys"!!!It
>happens with fuel, w/me anyhow....I need 5% 22oil
>content/mixed...Plese don't tell me to order from somewhere
>across the country,,I need fuel for the weekend flying--In
>So. Cal-LA area, aside from Naccratto-He has none...Where
>can I get fuel?????Covina has none>>>only Omega-kool-aid
>fuels--Where is the stash of Powermaster-or Sig fuel in the
>area?????It happens W/dope too..Just use Aero Gloss-dope is
>dope!!!!Thanks DAvid....

Hobby People should have it, I would think. They are a Powermaster Distributor.
Brett

Brett,
Thanks, I found the stash!!!Hobby People in OC have 5%, maybe I should be "quiet" about that?????LOL...Regards David..

Buy whatever is available and doctor it as necessary. Sig sells very good castor. Ucon 300 is readily available, and nitro isn't too hard to find in small quantities. Doctored fuel runs fine. Perfect fuel is only necessary for important contest. I have a gallon can that I dump various fuel remains into. The nitro might vary from 5-20%. Oil is usually around 20%. When I need it I simply dump in a little extra castor and use it for break-in. With a needle adjustment, it also works fine for practice. We obsess too much about fuel. It is nitro oil and methanol and very easy to make your own. I mixed all of my fuel, including World competition from locally obtained components.

Call Eric Rule at RSM. He is in the vast LA area somewhere, and sells good control line fuel.
Steve
The older I get, the better I used to fly!

>friends
>You ever need something for stunt and you go to the local
>hobby shop and the behind the counter expert tells you-"just
>use what we have its all the same"!!!!Boy you "CL guys"!!!It
>happens with fuel, w/me anyhow....I need 5% 22oil
>content/mixed...Plese don't tell me to order from somewhere
>across the country,,I need fuel for the weekend flying--In
>So. Cal-LA area, aside from Naccratto-He has none...Where
>can I get fuel?????Covina has none>>>only Omega-kool-aid
>fuels--Where is the stash of Powermaster-or Sig fuel in the
>area?????It happens W/dope too..Just use Aero Gloss-dope is
>dope!!!!Thanks DAvid....

How abut ED'S Covina Hobby? When I was a kid they had it all.

Dave if you cant find anything by thurs I'm going to the basen fri and I'll mix you a gal,free. call me thurs nite @805-526-9074 Scott Dinger

Covina Hobby carries the Powermaster GMA blend... I have bought it there several times in the last year. 29% castor with either 10% or 5% nitro. Good stuff!

Or order the L&J blend from RSM Distibution... Eric is in Temecula these days...

Scott, I will see you on Sat...Thanks so much...David

LAST EDITED ON Nov-10-04 AT 07:37 AM (CDT)
 
You can't always get what you want, but if you try real hard, you can get what you need.

Does anybody know of a current source for methanol, nitro, and oil ? We used to mix our own. It looks like there is nitch open for a businessman. Has anybody ever tried ethanol in lieu of methanol, you can get denatured alchohol (poison whiskey) at any builders' store.

I scanned round and didn't hit it yet. Sunoco Racing Fules sells the stuff, but for more than we pay in hobby shops.

In a way, I can't blame your local hobby dealer. Just on this web site, you'd find 50 different fuel formuli. Everyone is convinced that his formula is the ONE TRUE FUEL.

David,

Your post reminded me of an experience years ago, when I was getting back into stunt. I found myself in bad need of a 4 ounce metal fuel tank for a profile ship, and naturally both the local hobby shops had nothing. So I drove the ~50 miles to El Paso and looked there (3 hobby shops).

Finally I ended up at the old Five Points Hobby Shop, and way back in the back they had a metal tank on a display. It had clearly been there awhile, it still had a $2.95 price tag on it. I thought "problem solved!" and took it up to the clerk, who recognized a golden opportunity to gouge me, and told me the current price was $5.95.

I grumbled but paid it, took the prize tank home and started to mount it. I thought I would flush it out with some alcohol, and when I did, the discharge was gunky and had some rust in it. So I thought it might be a good idea to pop the back off and take a look. Good thing I did! The entire inside of the tank was covered with a thick rust. I squeezed the tank at one point and it was so thin it just collapsed. Completely unusable!

After all that effort - screwed, blued, and tattooed! When I told Bill Melton about it, he laughed and opened one of his work bench drawers and pulled out a serviceable tank and gave it to me.

As for fuel, I had been using the koolaid, and one day Bill Melton told me "I want you to see another factor of tuning your stunt engine." He pulled out a jug of Red Max 10% and filled my tank with it. I couldn't believe the difference in the way the engine ran! Bill let me have that gallon of fuel, while I ordered a replacement. (Bill was using 60% stuff in his carriers.)

A good Stunt Mentor is indispensible!

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"Once, during prohibition, I was forced to live for days on nothing but food and water." -W. C. Fields

Face it !!! We're a dying race. Retailers will not help us, and we can't do much for retailers.

Control Liners remind me of characters in "Mad Max" and "Thunderdome", also,. the much older "On the Beach".

When world evolved from cables to radio control, we were somehow left behind. Maybe we were in our caves, still actually building airplanes.

We are thought of as the Amish Modelers, driving down the highway of modeling in our horse-drawn buggys.

We'll just have to have a "barn-rasing", mix out own fuel, solder our own gas tanks.

Fortunately, RCer's still use glow plugs.

Dave,
Such is life in LA-LA land. I often get the Powermaster on sale and blend with extra oil, usually castor. Eric (RSM) can get fuel to your specs but its still mail order. And I often pick up fuel from Excalibur when I go to Phoenix, or when they go here. The Klotz oil guy has nitro at the upcoming AMA show, Ontario, CA.
Don't let your blood pressure go up by talking to hobby shop people. They seldom know squat. Just sales people who have never built or flown even and R/C ARF in there life.
Happy Landings

Just to demonstrate that I can **really** hijack a thread if I want to...

A few days before Halloween I snagged a home-made doughnut recipe from that "Good Eats" show. I can't be the only one of us watching! Alton Brown is hilarious! How many times have you seen fart jokes--of which there can never be too many, in my opinion--used in a home cooking show? Twice on "Good Eats," and I'm still counting...

Anyway, the recipe and procedures looked exactly like those used by Dear Mother to make doughnuts when I was a kid. And Mother can no longer be reached for comment, although she's in a place where doughnuts are, no doubt, free, huge and non-fattening.

All the stuff was in our kitchen, including nutmeg nuts. I am not a real serious cook, but you folk who lower your standards to the point of using pre-ground nutmeg in cooking are not qualified to wash my dishes. No offense, but really...

We no longer seem to own a doughnut cutter, fancy that. No problem, off to Local Grocery. None there. Another grocery didn't have them. Over to Target. Nope. My boys done good in recent elections, but a country where one cannot buy a doughnut cutter without tromping down I-405 to Sur La Table (I can even pronounce it correctly) is a country doomed to fail at some time in the near future.

Still, no problem. I mean, what do I need another fuel tank for? Grabbed some K&S tin stock, bent up and soldered into a loop my own danged doughnut cutter. One of decent size. And another for the hole.

The doughnuts were **fabulous,** particularly those with chocolate glazing, although urchins learning the basics of extortion were not given a single one.

i just pop over to krispy kreme and buy a dozen....yum!

Thanks Dan
I am so lazy and spoiled--Please do it for me menatlity is so rampant..What ever happened to the creative stunt flyer I thought I was..LOL.........Regards David........

LOL, They don't have fuel for the LA .40 in LA.

It's not worth the headache. Just call Red Max, they deliver anything you want right to your door.