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Cage Netting


irm750

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  • 3 months later...
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I am a bit concerned about the netting on my Fresh Breeze Simonini. On all sections it isn't very tight, and a hand goes through quite easily as the horizontal and verticle strings push apart freely to create quite a big hole.

Yesterday I slipped when starting it and landed on top of the control handle with the unit on top of me. It went to full thrust and stuck there due to a little bit of tension on the cruise control. To get off the handle and push the kill switch I had to get up on an elbow, and the netting allowed my shoulder to get through somehow. The prop ripped the shoulder off my jacket and left me with a fairly deep graze - for which I count myself lucky.

Obviously I have learned a painful lesson about safely starting the unit (I will be warming it up at idle with the prop off or with the unit on my back from now on, and testing the throttle moves freely) but there is also the fact that I placed too much faith in the netting. There seems to be no way of tightening it up. Where vertical and horizontal strands meet they are not tied together - and mostly dont even weave between each other.

Restringing it would be extremely difficult due to the way the lines go in and out of the frame itself, but I was thinking I could use nylon fishing line to tie the lines together where vertical and horizontal strands meet, so that they can't push apart. Is that a good idea, or is there a better way to do it?

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You should be able to at least tighten it up some.

The netting is threaded into one hole and out of the next on all sides. If you have some slack you should be able to figure out the sequence by pulling at one end near the frame (pull towards the frame) and checking the above or below hole to see which is now loose.

Once you have the pattern, start where one of the knots is and pull hard throughout the zig zag sequence around the frame and re-tie to take up the slack.

Hope you can follow this,

Cheers,

Alan

PS Don't run the motor without the prop as it would be very easy to over-rev it.

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Hi Alan, thanks for the advice. On closer inspection I was able to figure out how the lines are threaded and work the slack through all of the holes to the knotted end. I freed up around 5 inches of line on each section. My FB is around 5 years old, and I guess all tightened lines stretch and become loose over time. I wish I had thought about his a bit earlier though - I didn't see it mentioned in any of the checks.

I am still tempted to knot some of the crossovers with nylon though as there is still a fair bit of play due to the length of the lines.

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Dugald, don't run a Simonini without a prop. It maybe be difficult to start (no flywheel effect) but if it does start, it will go to full revs (no resistance) and likely cause irreparable damage. You can only run clutched motors without a prop. Starting on your back is the safest.

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Thanks for the advice on that - I wont bother with the prop-off idea. I will just have to work out a good technique that feels safe and then stick to it. I find that after several failed attempts to start it I get fuel flooding the spark plug (it is an upside down cylinder) and then further attempts just add to the black soup that has formed in the cylinder head, making it quite frustrating when it doesn't start on the first couple of pulls as I have to remove the plug and drain it.

I would liked to have fitted some sort of kick start stirrup as that would allow me to keep one hand on the kill switch (when starting it on my back it really needs two hands to get it going) but the angle of the pulley on the frame would seem to prohibit this. Probably the easiest option is just to build my arms up a bit and get good at pull starting it when it is on my back - I push a mouse around all day so I don't have much arm power! :D

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Yes I might consider joining the dark side and getting an electric start... :shock: Would probably work out cheaper than gym membership anyway. 8)

Last night I tried fashioning a foot attachment to see if it made things any easier but standing on one leg and doing a karate kick start with the other seems to make things even wobblier all in all! :D After a bit of practice doing a two handed start with it on my back, it was definately getting a bit easier, so I will stick to that.

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  • 3 years later...

I would expect the netted version of the cage to slot into the frame so you could just buy the newer version (not that cheap). Or drill out the old cage as was done originally in the thread. Loads of us flew with the gaps without incident, but it's not ideal.

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  • 6 months later...

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