ALLYN Loose-On-The-Ball

[soslipstream]

I know there are some collectors out there scratching their heads because they reassembled their Allyn Ashtray model and the the airplane just will not stay in a horizontal attitude. It is missing the the little red hard phenolic plastic friction disk. The company that made those no longer exists so we are stuck, right? No, there is a simple fix to the issue. This works, for sure, with the P-51 and P-80 models. It may work on others
Materials/Tools Needed- Appropriate sized screw driver, electric hand drill (with a fine wire wheel), one #2 pencil (new!), a coarse finger nail buffer, a cheap Lego toy kit (vehicle preferred) and GOOP brand glue.
1) Buy a Lego Kit that has the single little round lights (see 3d pic, grey piece)
2) Disassemble the airplane
3) Wire brush the threads of the Allyn Fuselage mounting screws. This is done to minimize the extra friction when screwing them back into the fuselage.
4) Pull out that new eraser from the pencil and chuck it into your drill. Grind off enough material such that the easer slides inside the spring. Do not cut off the excess yet.
5) Locate the little Lego light "Lens" and glue with the male end in, into the spring and let dry over night.
6) Next day, slide the modified eraser into the inside of the spring until it makes contact with the Lego lens. Trim it flush on the bottom.
7) Simply reassemble as before and tighten the assembly so all is flush.
8) Done! If the airplane is too rigid for your liking, trim off 1mm or more off the eraser.

This should cause enough compressive friction to hold any model into rigid stance!

The first picture shows the original spring/pad assembly. It is the pad that is uusally missing causing the "Limp Model Syndrome"

The Next picture shows the pencil eraser ready to grind to fit into the spring.

The last picture shows the new assembly of parts- The Lego lens (grey piece), Allyn spring, modified eraser.

This whole assembly gets mounted with the Lego piece contacting the ball on top of the arm on the stand.
Let me know if you have any other questions.
Regards, Tom Sanders

[voodoo1200]

Or you can just stretch the spring


or just add a small round piece of leather to take up space.