USPS delivers Cox TD-1 bent and cracked.

That would be a big NO DOG for me, need a refund! How the TD3 do?

Too bad, Bob...reminds me of the transport damage inflicted on the trailer to the beautiful Ford Mustangs of your son!!! Hopefully the damage is not so severe and you will manage to repair it..

crankbndr wrote:That would be a big NO DOG for me, need a refund! How the TD3 do?

Thanks guys, I think I can make the crack less obvious, the wing thankfully is fine.

The TD3 is due to be shipped tomorrow. The seller was going away for a week and asked if that would be ok. I just contacted him with those pictures aksing him to ship UPS or Fedex and pack it well. Got a box and accessories to pack too. Fingers crossed.

That’s too bad on the shipping damage Bob…. I’m sure you can repair the fuse crack from the inside and make it near invisible…Looks like it nearly wanted to get into the canopy as well…. Luckily not… Looking forward to the magic to be worked on this nice early Cox example

Quick progress, repaired from the inside. Testors Red Tube wicked into the crack, cured overnight.  Hardly visible now.







Deep story on this one, odd if interesting structure.  What a difference between this early Cox effort and later ones. Reading about them is one thing, hands on a different story.  

More later.

Hardly visible? Totally invisible, at least to me through my glasses, but I am sure very few of us will tell where that nasty crack was..congrats, Bob, your salvation results are always superb..

balogh wrote:Hardly visible?  Totally invisible, at least to me through my glasses, but I am sure very few of us will tell where that nasty crack was..congrats, Bob, your salvation results are always superb..

Thanks Andras, glory goes to the Testors Red Tube it has pulled my bacon out of the fire many times.  

Reason for the black electrical tape - one cowling screw was missing, no cracks.

Like was said glad it was no worst than that , repair looks great and about that story >

getback wrote:Like was said glad it was no worst than that , repair looks great and about that story >

I was worried about that electrical tape, a cracked cowling is difficult to repair.  

My theory is that he flew it and broke the original Cox propeller and separated the cowl at the seam.  Took it apart and lost one of the cowl screws and taped it back together.  Replaced the propeller with the wooden one and flew it several more times which filled the open screw hole with castor goo.  Took a toothpick and alcohol to dig it out.  At first I thought the screw had broken off in the hole, not a good thing...........



Whole thing a gooey mess, about normal for these.




Dumped in Berrymans for about 10 minutes, small paint brush brush over, Simple Green, water rinse.

rsv1cox wrote:Quick progress, repaired from the inside. Testors Red Tube wicked into the crack, cured overnight.  Hardly visible now.







Deep story on this one, odd if interesting structure.  What a difference between this early Cox effort and later ones. Reading about them is one thing, hands on a different story.  

More later.

WOW, That’s good advertisement for testers red tube cement

Lot's to discover about this model.

From my other post.



Scary, thought an adult.  Back to kid.  Who would fly it like this....



Offset engine.  Firewall has to be a weak point.




Lead in there.  Four little 2/56's and nuts.  (Two sets were missing, flew with two loose mounting hardware? Probably not but it's how it came) Think of the labor involved.  Later models just screwed into plastic with self tappers.

RSV1Cox wrote:
Scary, thought an adult.  Back to kid.  Who would fly it like this....

Even scarier, I think that is the factory leadout termination. It looks the same as on this TD-3 that recently came into my hands.

rsv1cox wrote:Thing of beauty.  Leroy knew what he was doing, or employed people that did until the bean counters entered the picture.  This model is so far ahead of the later plastic models that Cox produced.  I will cover that in my other thread.

Nice job of repair, Bob, on the fuselage crack. Yes, I'd say what you have is a quality Cox work. I'd be interested to listen to your take with your hands on experiences and research.

My gut level feeling was Leroy Cox wanted to make his planes affordable to not just the middle class, but the average Joe working parent also.

Thus, plastic injection molding, self tapping screws, simplified fuselage structure with minimal parts and quick assembly were goals.

The competition Testor's F4U Corsair, greatly simplified with Wen Mac engine is another example

I am amazed at the way they achieved their goals. A.C. Gilbert lost out because he focused on quality versus pricing point. IMO, no doubts if his American Flyer aircraft could sell for less than Cox or Testor, would have maybe had a chance in the market.

Duplicate removed

Best history on Roy Cox that I have read.

The AMA History Project Presents:
Biography of LEROY M. COX
c.1906 - 1981
Written & Submitted by ETT (3/1999); Transcribed & Edited by SS (12/2002); Reformatted by JS; Updated by JS (01/2012)
Career:
 1944: Developed and successfully sold a wooden popgun, forming his business called
Cox Manufacturing
 1945: Started producing metal racecars
 1947: Introduced the Cox Thimble Drome Champion racecar
 February 1948: Began producing engine-powered racecars
 1948: Began selling Thimble Drome glow fuel
 Designed and made the manufacturing machines to produce model engines in his factory
 Early 1950s: Began to get more into model airplane engine production; introduced the
Thimble Drome Space Bug in October 1950
 1953: Designed model airplanes to go with his engines starting with a U-Control model
called the Thimble Drome TD-1
 1953: Was also selling the Thermal Hopper and Space Bug Junior engines
 Mid-1950s: Produced the Baby Bee engine; later made the engine half-sized and called it
the Pee Wee
 Early 1960s: His company was producing seven different engines and seven airplanes
 1957: His company took over the flying circle at Disneyland; taught many youngsters
how to fly and gave numerous demonstrations
 Produced a training film called “Wally Wins His Wings”
 1952: Company became L.M. Cox Manufacturing Company, Inc.
 Pilot of full-sized aircraft
 Early 1960: Got into producing slot cars; established Cox International in 1962: Hong
Kong in 1962 to keep up with the slot car demand
 1967: Left with a large inventory when the slot car craze ended abruptly
 1969: Sold company to Leisure Dynamics, Inc., who continued to produce Cox products
 Member of the Hobby Industry Association of America (HIAA)
 One of the first hobby manufacturers to exhibit at the Nuremberg Toy Fair
 The first in the industry to use highly sophisticated measuring equipment
Honors:
 1981: Model Aviation Hall of Fame

Whole text here:

https://www.modelaircraft.org/sites/default/files/files/CoxLeroyM.pdf

From the AMA text:

The Space Bug engine was quite a remarkable advance in engine design. It had a compact cast
aluminum crankcase fastened to a rather large cast aluminum gas tank. The tank held a reedvalve fuel induction system and was radial-mounted to the firewall by four screws. The pistonconnecting rod was ball and socket rather than having a wrist pin. The most amazing feature was
the steel cylinder-piston combo that was machined to fantastically close tolerances. Instead of a
glow plug, it had an aluminum glow head with a built-in glow coil of his design.


By 1953, he was selling three different versions of the Thimble Drome engine. The Space Bug
sold for $6.95. By demand, the heavy tank was removed for the modelers and it was called the
Thermal Hopper for $6.95. Then Space Bug Junior with a plastic tank for $3.95. The first engine
review in Model Airplane News magazine was in May 1953 on page 29. This sparked a new
wave of enthusiasts.

From the AMA text:

The first plane was advertised in the August 1953 issue of Model Airplane News magazine and
called the Thimble Drome TD-1. It was a U-Control model that weighed 10 ounces, an
aluminum wing of 24-1/2-inches and the body of high impact plastic was 18-inches long. It came
completely assembled, ready to fly. For $19.95, it came with an accessory kit including Skylon
control reel, battery wires, battery connecting clip, control lines, filler hose, and finger guard in a
three-color box, plus complete instructions

Have to agree about the repair. Can't even see it after! Great job.

Do you fill the crack and 'scrape' off anything on the outside after, or just wipe off excess before it dries? I just remember using the stuff many moons ago on my plastic models I used to build. Dang I made a mess everywhere.....

NEW222 wrote:Have to agree about the repair. Can't even see it after! Great job.

Do you fill the crack and 'scrape' off anything on the outside after, or just wipe off excess before it dries? I just remember using the stuff many moons ago on my plastic models I used to build. Dang I made a mess everywhere.....

Easiest repair that I have ever made of this severity. A little finger manipulation and it just snapped into place. You could hear it. Then I just twisted it a bit from the inside which opened the crack and covered it with Testors wicking it into the crack. None of it came through on the outside. I just got lucky, not always my case.

Somehow I think I'm really going to screw up this wing. The aluminum is stained beyond the hot castor. I'm going to try Berrymans, it works wonders on Cox aluminum cases returning them to like-new condition. Maybe the same for the wing.

The bell crank and leadouts are all self contained inside the wing, something goes wrong and there is no repair. The pivot for the bell crank is one of the fuselage locating pins and the wing is crimp sealed all the way around the perimeter.

Throwing away caution - "If it works, it works if it doesn't, it doesn't" I coated one half of the wing with Berryman's and let it sit for about seven minutes.  Sprayed it with Simple Green to neutralize the Berrymans and immersed it in water wiping it with a microfiber towel while still wet.  I was amazed, gave me the as manufactured look that I wanted.  Finished the rest of the wing and the landing gear in the same way.




Photos show shadows that are not there.




I haven't forgotten about The Red Devil.

Had a feeling the Berryman's might work, wasn't sure the best way to accomplish the application, but it looks like you nailed it! That stuff sure does a good job on aluminum engine parts, the trick I learned the hard way is to not let it soak too long.

Don

pman1111 wrote:Had a feeling the Berryman's might work, wasn't sure the best way to accomplish the application, but it looks like you nailed it! That stuff sure does a good job on aluminum engine parts, the trick I learned the hard way is to not let it soak too long.

              Don

Thanks Don for the suggestion, it really hadn't crossed my mind until you mentioned it.   Then I remembered how well it works on Cox cases.  It's the best part of the model and the part that worried me the most.  Completed except for the propeller, I haven't settled on that one yet.

Wing is clean and universal in apperance, what you see are reflections.  The wing is just as it came out of the Berrymans, Simple Green, and water rinse, no polishes.






The seller refunded me $50, what I had asked for.  I told him to go to the local post office and file a claim using my description and pictures.  Makes the cost for it less than $100.

Missing cowl screw was a 2/56.  I just cut another one to length.

Hi Bob, a little acrylic gloss clear varnish on canopy crack will be good. Crack also need to be filled. I meant Testors plastic model acrylics.