Mintor 33cc reed valves

A few weeks ago i made the following comments in Flying Pete's post about his Hurricane engine out.
(I've been doing a bit of research into DLE running issues recently and there are quite a lot of posts on the US websites relating to "lapping" the reed valve faces. Also an article in this months RCM&E where the author also describes the process of lapping the reed petals as well. I don't know if this was a historic issue or related to current engines but thought it might be worth sharing info for all petrol heads. With this in mind, i have stripped the reed assembly on my long standing troublesome Mintor engine. I did find some fretting on the edge of the reed petals (on my engine they are steel) so i have cleaned and lapped them and will shortly reassemble the engine for testing)
Today i flight tested the Mintor in my Super Stearman and i'm delighted to have completed 5 perfect flights. All the mid range power fluctuation has disappeared and for the first time since new , the engine has exceeded 7K revs. and i am building confidence in the engine.
My thanks go to Mr B Winch the long term engine columnist.

Glad you brought this up Kevin. I was researching DLE engines a while ago and came across this same post or one very similar to it on RC Forums. I was also thinking at the time about Dave B's issues with his new engine maybe he had valve problems due to factory assembly.

Good to hear Kevin. I know you were on the cusp of launching it out the window....