Did I just get a fake Black Widow???

Ok great picture! It has the same thick wall #1 cylinder.

Yes that can be swapped out will need to recover a spring for it but the rest looks good
considering it's a early generation frame.

Yup got all the parts already lol...

The widow box is the first generation of the BW. The thick wall cylinder is not correct it should be stepped. Besides the spinner and lack of spring everything else is correct.

One I still have I purchased in 1970's, has same cylinder as yours Ron, but with a #2 stamped on the side of it, gold anodized crankcase, snap starter, black anodized tank and gold back. Some of the bluing is worn off from using an Ace R/C throttle sleeve some 40 years ago. Shining a light in the port it only has one bypass port.

Good possibility that what I have is a Golden Bee instead of a Black Widow, although I thought I bought a Black Widow. The gray matter gets fuzzy after 40 years.

Back then, I'd use the Cox wrench in the cylinder port, which sometimes would damage the cylinder with a burr. Then I'd go to a place selling parts like the hobby dealer or even Sears or Montgomery Ward.

It looks, it fits, it works. Being a sport flier and not a competition flier, I didn't pay much attention to parts. To me then, parts was parts.

This might explain how sometimes engines get fouled up, not intentionally, with exception of the Estes Neo-Cox era, stuff just happened.

Does look like my B/W is a Golden Bee instead. Was a college student then, Golden Bee was cheaper so I must have opted for it instead. From http://www.mh-aerotools.de/airfoils/cox_bees.htm


Just out of curiosity, I pulled the heads of a half dozen .049 Bee's I have, and to my amazement, I have a hodge podge.

1 - Babe Bee, older with thick needle valve head has single bypass thin wall cylinder with SPI.
1 - Babe Bee, newer with thinner needle valve head and cast back has dual bypass thin wall cylinder with SPI (but no #2).
1 - Babe Bee, newer with thinner needle valve head and cast back has dual bypass slit cylinder without SPI. (Think this is my worn out cylinder from my R/C Bee, cylinder sides are without bluing for throttle muffler sleeve).
1 - 190 postage stamp has single bypass thin wall cylinder.

Black Widow box has 1992 instruction set. I thought this was the one I got in the 1970's, but no, I think I got it with the later model B/W in a Sterling Beginner's Fokker DVII a friend gave me.

2 - later Cox 190's with horseshoe back, one black, one white has dual bypass non-SPI slit cylinders.

Hmmm ..... Just to think that in the 1990's, I flew that "Golden Bee" at 6,500 ft. (1981 m.) elevation and it could haul my Lee Renaud's Q-Tee decently. Just think how much more fun I would have had it was a B/W.

I could pull the dual bypass cylinder piston set off the Babe Bee, take the Tee Dee knurled ring head and make my Golden Bee a Black Widow.

I got the black widow all fixed up with the proper stepped #1 cylinder, small head needle valve, starter spring, and red spinner.
Looking a lot better now!

Much better.