I have always been intrigued by Co2 model airplane engines.  Always looking for a new piece for my collection, I picked up a Gasparin GMW 73T twin engine on ebay.  It was in great shape and never been run.  You don’t see many old Co2 model airplane engines come up on ebay and I am not sure if anyone makes them new any longer.  At any given time you may will find one here and there.  I am no expert on them and you have to dig a little to find info but what I do know is this little Gasparin Co2 engine is a work of art and I wanted to display it.  Below is some basic info on a little stand I built.  I am not sure on the prop choice yet but for now I have 7 x 4 prop mounted.

So I spent a little time looking at other model airplane display mounts and got a few ideas.  Then I started laying out, sketching, cutting out patterns to see how things would fit and finally had an idea of what I wanted.  I drew the parts out in light burn and cut out the basic shapes out of cheap plywood to see how everything would fit and look.  The nice thing about cutting out parts with the laser is I could cut a variety of shapes for different pieces like the ID plaque and see how everything looked.  Once I was satisfied with the look, I cut out the parts I wanted out of 1/8″ solid cherry.  The base is 1/2″ walnut that I had laying around.  The grain was nice and tight and took the black paint nicely.  

As mentioned, the parts were cut out of 1/8″ solid cherry with my laser.  (You can find good quality solid wood on Amazon here) The base was just cut and sanded with my miter saw.  I also cut a piece of 1/16″ plywood about 2mm smaller than the shape of the base to set the top off the bottom just a bit.  I covered the areas of the ID tag that would be engraved with masking tape.  After they cut, I shot the ID parts with a clear coat to seal the tape and then shot it with the white to fill the letters.  Not perfect but not bad and make the engraving stand out.  I usually like to prefer the natural look of cherry with just a clear coat but I decided on a mahogany stain as a better contrast to the base.  The base is satin black.  I used double sided tape to hold the fuel tank down.  

I was very happy with how the mount for the Gasparin GMW73T Co2 engine turned out.  As mentioned earlier, I am not sure on the prop yet.  I hope to have a video of the engine running up soon.  I am always looking for cool little projects that I combines my love of creating with my other interests like model airplanes.  I also love it when I can utilize my laser in the project.  Right now I use a simple Sculpfun 20 watt Pro Max laser. Here is a link to another project that I made with the laser that has a little info on the laser, the wood etc.  Amazon is  a good source for solid cherry for your projects.  They also offer the lasers and some other accessories for using them that will help you out.