Carl Goldberg Wild Stick 120 restoration project

[basslord1124]

So I recently acquired this Carl Goldberg Wild Stick 120 (along with a few other planes). Pretty excited about it as I've been on a quest to add some more balsa planes to my collection. I was able to find the original manual to the plane and it appears to have come out around then mid 2000's. The plane is powered by a glow engine...and will be the first glow engine I have messed with in 25 years (and even back then I barely messed with it). Glow engine appears to be a Supertigre 20 made in China...20cc. The thing throws a huge prop which I haven't measured yet...guessing maybe a 16" or so.

From what I can tell, the plane appears to be in pretty good condition.

Structure seems solid.

Covering...I have noticed one small tear which I don't think will be a big deal to fix. Also noticed a few top pieces of colored covering have peeled...the bottom white covering is still in place. I don't really have plans to recover the whole thing, but maybe patch a little.

Engine was a little gummed up...we were able to free it with just a little bit of pressure. Outside looks pretty nasty and the needle valve seems stuck (just trying to use my fingers to turn it). I'm unsure of the proper name but there was also a built in glow igniter on this plane...basically a battery with wires running to the glow plug to keep it lit the whole time while running. I am kinda 50/50 on whether I will keep it.

At this time, servos have not been tested.

Also, this Stick has flaps.

I'll continue posting updates as I mess around with the plane. Here's some pics...

Original price he had on the plane

 

[The Hangar]

Awesome project, I’ll be following for sure!

 

[speedbirdted]

Super Tiger engines are (were) Italian made. I believe the later ones are made in Taiwan. I haven't noticed any difference in either finish or performance between the Italian and Taiwanese made engines. I believe what this has is a 2000. G.20 was a designation used for a much smaller and older engine.

I had a 2500 a while ago which is just a bored out 2000. Never mounted it to anything, just ran it on the stand once. I believe I used a 17x8 and got about 9200 rpm but according to Super Tiger to get the most power you should let them spin up to above 10k. A 16 inch prop would fit the 2000 perfectly. I would use a 16x8 or a 16x10 if you wanna go really fast. If you're still thirsty for more power, you can replace the stock carb with an OS 7D which is a direct drop-in fit and will give you a few more top end revs.

These larger engines are really happy on low nitro fuel. I have a feeling it has something to do with being a European designed motor (fuel with nitro is about as rare as hen's teeth over there) I found it would run perfectly happily on 5% but on FAI it seemed to struggle a little. Sometimes the transition seemed a little laggy and the idle wasn't as stable as I wanted plus it was hard to tune. On a hunch I mixed up a batch of 1% nitro fuel which seemed to work just as well as 5%. They also don't need as much oil. I ran them on 20% as with pretty much every other engine I own but I've heard of people using as little as 14% with a pinch of castor and suffering no ill effects. 20% certainly won't do anything bad though, just create more mess on the side of the airplane after a flight.

A word of warning: They will, in rare cases, start with no glow attached. I had mine nearly eat my fingers when I tried to prime it and it popped. Large glow motors tend to behave more like compression ignition diesels.

If the carb barrel is locked up from polymerized oil, all you need to do is shoot a little 3-in-1 oil into there and then blast it with a heat gun for a few minutes and it should start to unstick itself. If there are any O-rings or plastic components to the carburetor, remove them, as they won't survive the procedure (I tried to do it on a Perry carb once. The result was not happy) You can do a similar thing to the needle valve: Unscrew it all the way, put some oil down the hole where it goes, apply heat to both carb body and valve, then thread it back in and out a few times and it should free it up a bit. Careful with heating the valve though as they sometimes have a little O-ring which is impossible to find a replacement for if you burn it up. If this for whatever reason doesn't work you can strip the engine down and stick the parts in either straight methanol or just fuel for a few days and that should unstick everything.

Ditch the onboard driver. If you have to apply constant heat to your plug to prevent it from going cold the engine is mis-tuned. The only case I use an onboard driver is when the plug is positioned somewhere that would be prohibitively hard to reach using a standard handheld driver, like pointing towards the ground or inside of a cowl that can't have holes drilled in it for scale or aero reasons.

About the airplane: Check ALL the servos thoroughly. Never trust an untested servo! Cycle them, load them, stall them out, do everything that doesn't constitute abuse. (You can do that too if you need the extra assurance) If this comes with a battery that's as old as the airplane, don't use it. Nicads and nimhs don't degrade that badly over time (I know people who still swear by them in this century) but the current supply and capacity of them is far surpassed by LiFe packs. They're also much lighter and will hold their charge much longer - generally what I do is recharge all my LiFe packs at the beginning of a season and don't usually need to recharge them until next season unless I fly a lot or make some boneheaded move like leaving it on all night.

Also check the firewall for oil absorption. If it's made of ply it might not be too bad, but I would check it just in case. You can also check everything downwind of the exhaust for the same condition but if the covering doesn't appear to have started to come off and all the seams are still stuck down you probably won't have to bother with that.

 

[basslord1124]

Hey thanks for the info @speedbirdted , much appreciated!

On the engine, the guy I got it from said he ran 5% nitro fuel in it. Prop is 16". Just measured the fuel tank too (which I will replace with new)...it was 16oz. Also, on the back of the engine, mine is stamped China, so made in China. I've been in the process too of removing the nosecone and prop so I can get a good measurement of the engine weight. I have the nosecone off, props still stuck. I might try it again here later.

And yeah I'm probably gonna pitch the onboard igniter. The way he explained it was for extreme maneuvers or maybe b/c it was side mounted?? Regardless like I said, I will probably get rid of it.

Don't think there was any batteries in this one, but yeah I figure I will run the receiver and servos with a LiFE pack.

Thanks for the info on checking the firewall, I have heard others mention that too.

 

[basslord1124]

Finally got an introductory video published about the plane.

As I go through things I will get some photo/video progress as well.

One thing I am wondering about is if I should keep the stock servos (assuming they all still work). About to order some fresh glow fuel, fuel pump, tank, and some of those goodies.

 

[basslord1124]

Video update on the Wild Stick. Starting to get a decent collection of glow engine goodies.

 

[The Hangar]

Video update on the Wild Stick. Starting to get a decent collection of glow engine goodies.

That engine looks a lot better after that cleaning! Do I spy a set of cloud dancer plans on your desk?

 

[basslord1124]

That engine looks a lot better after that cleaning! Do I spy a set of cloud dancer plans on your desk?

Yeah actually pretty good for just some Dawn.

Well I guess there's a Cloud Dancer plane too, had no idea. Actually the one I have is called the Cloud Ranger. Basically same type of plane it looks like.

Yeah been slow on the Ranger, but it has been moving forward.

 

[basslord1124]

Wow, been a while since I've updated this thread....

Well for those who may not know much outside this thread, shortly after my last post here we decided to put our house on the market to sell and so I packed up most of my plane stuff and put it in storage to help with decluttering of the house for new buyers. House still isn't sold unfortunately, so things are still in limbo.

But anyways, onto the Wild Stick. I had been trying to clean the engine up and I think it's as good as it's going to get. It's definitely 10 times better than what it was. It could honestly use some more cleaning BUT, it's just gonna get dirty again so I just figured enough is enough. Here's a pic of muffler now:

The rest of the engine was a little grimy but not terrible. As far as being stuck...it wasn't too bad. Little bit of pressure and it loosened up. Even the carb needle valve wasn't too bad. I also purchased some new muffler gasket material. Scraped the old stuff off, just gotta put the new stuff on. Once that is set I'll remount the engine.

Something else I am definitely going to do is replace the stock flap servos. The originals were the Futaba S3004. I have purchased some Hitec High Torque MG servos. Figured it could be a high stress area and definitely didn't want to risk it failing. I did a basic run on the rest of the servos and they all seem fine. So...I MAY leave the rest of the servos alone. But with the flaps, I wanted to definitely upgrade them.

Originally with the rest of the supplies with all the planes this glow plug starter was included....

There was no charger cord and I had no idea how long it had been sitting, so I went ahead and bought a brand new one to play it safe:

I think the rest of the supplies are ok for now. There was a brand new glow plug included, some fuel tubing, glow plug wrench, electric starters, etc. I think the only thing left in terms of that is fixing up the starters to accept a lipo battery...time to crack out the soldering tools and a battery connector.

Something else that I have been pondering is the radio situation. This plane (and the others) had an FM receiver. I have a Spektrum DX6 that I've been using for years. With the plane there are: 2 x flap servos, 2 x aileron servos, 2 x elevator servos, 1 rudder servo, and 1 throttle servo. I'm debating on Y harnessing what I can to make 6 channels work OR upgrade the radio. Might be a good opportunity to consider an upgrade b/c I I have had the DX6 for a while and it's an older generation model. More channels would give me more flexibility as well in terms of the configuration. 8 channels? 9 channels? or 12 channels? Not sure yet. I am also going to suck it up and stick an official Spektrum receiver in the plane. I had been using Lemon receivers and other DSMX compatible receivers for a while in my foamies. I felt for this, I'd go official.

Well that is all for now. All the moving chaos I had to keep some plane stuff going for my sanity so I figured to focus on this one for now. Will post updates when I can.

 

[PsyBorg]

Wow, been a while since I've updated this thread....

Well for those who may not know much outside this thread, shortly after my last post here we decided to put our house on the market to sell and so I packed up most of my plane stuff and put it in storage to help with decluttering of the house for new buyers. House still isn't sold unfortunately, so things are still in limbo.

But anyways, onto the Wild Stick. I had been trying to clean the engine up and I think it's as good as it's going to get. It's definitely 10 times better than what it was. It could honestly use some more cleaning BUT, it's just gonna get dirty again so I just figured enough is enough. Here's a pic of muffler now:

View attachment 205171

The rest of the engine was a little grimy but not terrible. As far as being stuck...it wasn't too bad. Little bit of pressure and it loosened up. Even the carb needle valve wasn't too bad. I also purchased some new muffler gasket material. Scraped the old stuff off, just gotta put the new stuff on. Once that is set I'll remount the engine.

Something else I am definitely going to do is replace the stock flap servos. The originals were the Futaba S3004. I have purchased some Hitec High Torque MG servos. Figured it could be a high stress area and definitely didn't want to risk it failing. I did a basic run on the rest of the servos and they all seem fine. So...I MAY leave the rest of the servos alone. But with the flaps, I wanted to definitely upgrade them.

Originally with the rest of the supplies with all the planes this glow plug starter was included....

View attachment 205172

There was no charger cord and I had no idea how long it had been sitting, so I went ahead and bought a brand new one to play it safe:

View attachment 205173

I think the rest of the supplies are ok for now. There was a brand new glow plug included, some fuel tubing, glow plug wrench, electric starters, etc. I think the only thing left in terms of that is fixing up the starters to accept a lipo battery...time to crack out the soldering tools and a battery connector.

Something else that I have been pondering is the radio situation. This plane (and the others) had an FM receiver. I have a Spektrum DX6 that I've been using for years. With the plane there are: 2 x flap servos, 2 x aileron servos, 2 x elevator servos, 1 rudder servo, and 1 throttle servo. I'm debating on Y harnessing what I can to make 6 channels work OR upgrade the radio. Might be a good opportunity to consider an upgrade b/c I I have had the DX6 for a while and it's an older generation model. More channels would give me more flexibility as well in terms of the configuration. 8 channels? 9 channels? or 12 channels? Not sure yet. I am also going to suck it up and stick an official Spektrum receiver in the plane. I had been using Lemon receivers and other DSMX compatible receivers for a while in my foamies. I felt for this, I'd go official.

Well that is all for now. All the moving chaos I had to keep some plane stuff going for my sanity so I figured to focus on this one for now. Will post updates when I can.

I know you are in the spectrum camp but I seriously suggest if you are wanting to upgrade to get one of the open tx based radios. Be it older Taranis with a multi protocol module in the bay so you can fly darn near EVERYTHING or one of the Radiomasters with the all in one built in.

The diversity open tx brings a whole new universe of capabilities and you are not locked into any one expensive proprietary receiver brand.

 

[basslord1124]

@PsyBorg ...ya know, a part of me has wondered about OpenTX radios. Just never given them a try. I might do it if the price is right

 

[PsyBorg]

@PsyBorg ...ya know, a part of me has wondered about OpenTX radios. Just never given them a try. I might do it if the price is right

If you can, make sure you get one that has the hall effect gimbals. HUGE performance boost with how precise you can be on the sticks over analog pot style gimbals. Let alone they are no where near as glitchy requiring big deadbands.

 

[Flightspeed]

I highly recommend the radiomaster tx16s with hall gimaballas, I really like it, you can put a crossfire pod on it too.

 

[basslord1124]

Well after a looooooong hiatus with a crazy house move and other delays, I have finally dug this plane back out and have resumed work on it. Engine is as cleaned up as it's gonna get and remounted back on the plane. Glow fuel tank is being worked on and will soon be installed. Also some other small things as well.

I did end up switching to an OpenTX radio...Taranis X9D Plus. I have gotten used to it pretty well. Already have a FrSky receiver in the Wild Stick for use.

I'll get some pics snapped of the progress and attach them to the thread.

 

[basslord1124]

Some pics of the motor mounted back....

Replacing the old throttle servo with this new Hitec HS311. Going to switch out the servo arm out instead of the round one. The original throttle servo was rigged up with some sort of old onboard glow system. There were some pieces of it attached to the original servo. Thought I could remove it easily, but nope, it appeared to be epoxied on real heavily. So just said forget it and replace it with a new servo that I had laying around.

 

[basslord1124]

New video on the Carl Goldberg Wild Stick...engine mounted, glow fuel/muffler pressure lines, fuel tank, servos, etc...

Overall pretty happy with the progress so far. Next steps are to work on the wing and attempt to fire up the engine.

 

[basslord1124]

New video....first attempt at trying to fire up the old Supertigre engine.

This counts as the first time firing up of this engine AND first time tackling a glow engine by myself. I had a brief experience with glow when I was a teen, but my dad did all the engine stuff while I just controlled throttle.

Overall, it was very neat and obviously still got a little ways to go. Sounds like a beast running! Hoping to start doing some more runs and see if I can tune the thing lol.

 

[Bricks]

Glad you got her running those old big Fox`s were beasts. Sounds like you might want to richen the bottom side a sure sign of lean is dieing when throttle is applied.

 

[Bo123]

Reminds me of the GOldberg Eagle trainer that I have to gert up and running. Need to de cover it and re-cover it, and put a motor in it. Hmmmm….

 

[basslord1124]

Posted a new video on the Stick and more specifically the Super Tigre engine. Needless to say I had some troubles tuning it. I have gotten a lot of information on the engine itself so hoping the next attempts I can make some better progress.