I've been feeling a bit nostalgic lately, so I decided to dig out my old Graupner Topsy from my mom's basement and clean it up so I can hang it in my shop.
This Topsy was my very first R/C model. I received it as a gift from my grandparents back in 1972 when my sister and I spent a month in Germany visiting. I was 12 years old at the time.
My dad did most of the building & finishing, but I was there providing much needed moral support! It was originally powered by a Cox .049 Babe Bee engine and guided by a single channel Ace radio with a Bantam servo. After a while I swapped out the original Babe Bee fuel tank for a Golden Bee tank to get a little more flying time.
The Topsy was covered with silkspan and painted with Pactra Aerogloss dope.
Being over 50 years old the model had seen better days. But surprisingly the dope finish has held up pretty well. Aside from a little staining it wasn't too bad. To clean this thing I used Dawn dish detergent & water for most of it which did a decent job of removing most of the filth. For the more stubborn areas I used Windex. There were some stains that just didn't want to clean up, but hey, it's 50 years old for cryin' out loud!
The engine was completely gummed up from dried caster oil goo! So I disassembled it, dropped most of the pieces in an ultrasonic cleaner for 20 minutes which did a nice job of cleaning them up. The piston & cylinder and crankcase assemblies needed a bit of heat to get them apart. Once
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