DeadMonkey
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- Feb 13, 2015
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Greetings!
I'm new here, lurking for a while and thought I would post a build thread.
Questions? Comments? Be my guest.
This is my second Wildman kit and I LOVE the look of the new Profusion tube.
My previous Wildman kit was the 29mm mini. I pretty much followed the directions word for word since it was my first fiberglass build. It turned out great but has been lost to the rocketry gods. Hopefully she will show up some day but alas is probably fin deep in a gopher hole.
On to it then>
Sanding and prep:
Sanding was restricted only to where the fillets were going to be I simply measured where the large tongue depressor touched for the desired fillet size.
I used a belt sander to give a nice angle to the leading and trailing edges of the fins.
And of course I sanded the entire outside of the motor tube and the inside of the body tube.
The gap between the forward spacer rings will have a hole drilled, filled with epoxy and a brass threaded insert for the launch rails. Same for the aft.
The idea here with the Kevlar cord is I did not want to epoxy it lengthwise to the motor tube. I think a double noose is a better idea and ultimately lighter. With two of them, I double engineer it. If one breaks there is another. Or another way to think of it, two will split the load of one. I much rather like the peace of mind knowing there is redundancy. With each cord able to hold 1200lbs I think I'm covered.
I used blue coloring on the epoxy covering the Kevlar in an attempt to better see if it was covering it or not.
For the attaching the fins I used some West Systems Colodial Silica 406 to slightly thicken it so it stayed in place where it touches the body tube.
I taped up each fin and let it set up. This basically took all day! All the wile I had the end spacer ring in but not glued to properly space everything. I put in some eye screws so I can pry it out later. Tape wasn't going to cut it since its a nice tight fit.
To finish up the fins on the inside I did not like the directions where it has you drill 4 holes in the body tube for each fin and pump in epoxy. I am very much against putting any kind of holes into the body tube if at all possible. I just popped off the bottom ring and poured it in the back.
Much to my surprise it seems to have even 'wicked' up the side of the fin! kind of a self assembling fillet on the inside. Hooray surface tension.
I'm quite pleased with the outcome even though I never intended that to happen.
I'm new here, lurking for a while and thought I would post a build thread.
Questions? Comments? Be my guest.
This is my second Wildman kit and I LOVE the look of the new Profusion tube.
My previous Wildman kit was the 29mm mini. I pretty much followed the directions word for word since it was my first fiberglass build. It turned out great but has been lost to the rocketry gods. Hopefully she will show up some day but alas is probably fin deep in a gopher hole.
On to it then>
Sanding and prep:
Sanding was restricted only to where the fillets were going to be I simply measured where the large tongue depressor touched for the desired fillet size.
I used a belt sander to give a nice angle to the leading and trailing edges of the fins.
And of course I sanded the entire outside of the motor tube and the inside of the body tube.
The gap between the forward spacer rings will have a hole drilled, filled with epoxy and a brass threaded insert for the launch rails. Same for the aft.
The idea here with the Kevlar cord is I did not want to epoxy it lengthwise to the motor tube. I think a double noose is a better idea and ultimately lighter. With two of them, I double engineer it. If one breaks there is another. Or another way to think of it, two will split the load of one. I much rather like the peace of mind knowing there is redundancy. With each cord able to hold 1200lbs I think I'm covered.
I used blue coloring on the epoxy covering the Kevlar in an attempt to better see if it was covering it or not.
For the attaching the fins I used some West Systems Colodial Silica 406 to slightly thicken it so it stayed in place where it touches the body tube.
I taped up each fin and let it set up. This basically took all day! All the wile I had the end spacer ring in but not glued to properly space everything. I put in some eye screws so I can pry it out later. Tape wasn't going to cut it since its a nice tight fit.
To finish up the fins on the inside I did not like the directions where it has you drill 4 holes in the body tube for each fin and pump in epoxy. I am very much against putting any kind of holes into the body tube if at all possible. I just popped off the bottom ring and poured it in the back.
Much to my surprise it seems to have even 'wicked' up the side of the fin! kind of a self assembling fillet on the inside. Hooray surface tension.
I'm quite pleased with the outcome even though I never intended that to happen.
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