Another quick and dirty win.

A few years ago I cut a piece of the nose off Nomad 2 and installed a firewall for an r/c engine mount. As it happened the bolt pattern for the mnount and the electric motor mount are the same. I switched back and forth between electric and glow power frequently. Lately there has been a lot of vibration when using glow engines and I had to do something. The tonneau cover on my truck was at it's bitter end and needed replaceing. After changing covers I salvaged all the aluminum parts from the old one. Two of the parts were 1/2" x 2" x 5' thin wall aluminum box tubing. I knew I could find a use for it somewhere. Back to the plane. I cut off a piece of the aluminum tubing and cut an opening that would fit the engine and a notch that goes around the wing leading edge, installed wood motor mounts and filled the rest with balsa. Then I cut the planes nose to fit the new engine crutch and started filling the open space with balsa sheet and the aluminum crutch. After some sanding and a layer of 1/2 ounce fiberglass cloth it was ready for paint. I had some left over butyrate dope and brushed on a few coats of Miami Blue and some kind of red. I didn't want to brush the clear so I used a Pre-Val sprayer for that. It's good for small areas but will freeze up on large areas. I got to South Park early today, 9-6-25, and got in a test flight in the fog. Nice and steady with good corners inside and outside. The engine ran very well with the new set up and the weight gain was miniscule if any. All up weight is 50.4 ounces without the spinner. I was able to remove a 1/2 ounce weight from the tail as I shortened the nose by a 1/2 inch to improve the corners. It took a lot of sanding to get a good snug fit on the engine bearers and balsa filler pieces but it was worth it.