MX2 Almost Flight Ready

My MX2 Pro did some funky chicken several days ago, and ended up in two pieces with a crumpled  cowl, broken prop and nose cone, and bent landing gear. I started the repair work the day before yesterday by rejoining the two halves. I was so focused on getting the halves together with some spars that I didn't take pics of the repair process. It took all three of my hands to get it together. I decided to cut a slit that would allow the servo tray to slide in, thereby allowing me to bring the halves together with fore to aft spars. I used "popsicle" sticks as spars, and opted to use the Beacon 3-in-1 glue instead of epoxy. It came together very well. Unfortunately, as I expected, the low tack painter's tape still pulled the decals off, so I had to change the paint job...

Its interesting that when you look at the plane, the purple paint matches perfectly, but in a pic it comes out different and the plane appears blue. It appears blue in the BananaHobbies pics too. I used a cheap paint from Home Depot for the purple, but had to get Testor's Sublime Green to come pretty close to matching the lighter green. Not perfect, but it looks pretty good.  I used a sealing iron to smooth out the very badly bent up cowl, and it too worked surprisingly well, but not perfect. The servos are all in, digital all around, and work great. The control surfaces move freely and have a good full range of motion. I also threw a couple of ounces of large metal washers in epoxy in the cowl to bring the CG forward, one of the problems that has plagued the MX2.

The prop adapter and spinner remain a problem. BlitzRCWorks used a custom prop adapter that has a 6mm shaft on a base that has the mounting holes 13mm on center. I had bought a similar prop adapter from HeadsUpRC but the mounting holes were off by about a mm... Getting a new one from BH has been proving a long process, and I am not sure it will be successful as the parts are not listed (the adapter) or not in stock (the spinner). Besides, I don't want to be stuck with a custom adapter, or with that problematic ginormous spinner. So today I purchased a motor from Value Hobby after a very long search for a 700W, 700kc motor. I found several, but nearly every single one was out of stock. I bought the GForce G32 800kv motor (42-50-800kv), not as a runner up, its a really good motor. I am hoping it gets here in a couple days (paid the extra shipping and sent them an email asking for them to send it fastest means). This is all I need to fly the MX2, and I would like to do so before I leave on vacation. Yeah, that's sublime green paint on my thumb...

I will be adapting a three blade spinner I got at my LHS and once the motor gets here I am looking forward to flying her again! Hopefully successfully this time...