EXPjawa
Well-Known Member
I recently dug out and repaired my old Argosy that was originally built somewhere around 1990. I can't recall now if it ever saw a flight, because I built it shortly before going off to college and only flew a few rockets after that time (until recently). It had never been decaled, as I lost them at some point in time, and was just painted basic red w/ canopy drawn on with a marker. In the storage box, one side wing/fin had come off, the body tube had been slightly ovalized, and was generally worse for wear. I repaired the fins, put epoxy fillets on them just to be sure and then decided that I needed to do something about the main tube. My original thought was to layer on half a tube over the length of the squished area, but then it occurred to me that a jet-like craft ought to have some sort of engine inlet. So, I cut a scrap of BT50 tubing to fit and trimmed as you see here, then blended and filled the joint. I made small inlet strakes from balsa to help support the scoop area. The rocket was then extensively sanded, primed, & painted with Duplicolor Metalcast red paint. Final finishing was with a set of Excelsior reproduction decals. Placement had to be adjusted somewhat to account for the dorsal intake, but still looks as if its supposed to be that way. Now I'm just waiting on spring...
