Back to business: Starship Excalibur build thread

Hi folks,

Too much of my time on the forum recently has been devoted to threads about who got banned and why, or whether or not SuperGirl should wear a cape and tights....

So this weekend, I went out and launched rockets. Eventually I'll put up some pics.

And today, I worked on my Starship Excalibur build, that's been on hold for a while, and I'll start documenting it here. Sort of improving my own signal to noise ratio.


Starship Excalibur is one of my favorite old Estes DOM (Design Of the Month) designs.



Here is the parts spread:



The motor mount assembly was textbook, though I added a thrust ring for good measure. The kit only had the motor clip, and I don't like risking the motor tube ripping where the motor hook sticks through.



Stay tuned. The thread will continue, though I've got lots going on with life right now. In the next installment, I'll botch the fins, but recover with some grace...

Looking forward to it, Marc. I hope eRockets brings this one back.

Marc_G said:

Hi folks,

Too much of my time on the forum recently has been devoted to threads about who got banned and why, or whether or not SuperGirl should wear a cape and tights....

So this weekend, I went out and launched rockets. Eventually I'll put up some pics.

And today, I worked on my Starship Excalibur build, that's been on hold for a while, and I'll start documenting it here. Sort of improving my own signal to noise ratio.

Click to expand...

:clap: looking forward to more rocket content!

Have you ever had a sense of impending doom?

This is one of those threads. In real time, I haven't even put the fins on, and I've made 2 major mistakes and a couple of more minor ones. I just noticed my second major mistake, and it's a double, no... perhaps triple facepalm. But we'll get to them in good time.

OK. Next up. Fins. The ones I said I botched.

It started innocently enough. I took some Carpenter's Wood Glue, thinned a bit of it with a couple drops of water, and soaked the curved edge of the fins with it in the area where the curved edges will eventually meet up with the pod rear nose cones. I like to thin the glue in this type of application because it really soaks in and makes for a very strong bond.



I also use the same slightly thinned glue on the rear pod nose cones , in an area matching the fins, so that the glue would soak into the cones well in the attachment area. No picture of this, because there was really nothing to see. All parts were set aside to dry thoroughly.

That's when it happened. I got a dumba$$ idea. The fins are composite, made of two parts each. I got the fool notion to put the pieces together on a piece of flat glass I use (a shelf from a piece of old IKEA furniture), and use a drop of CA to tack the pieces together. The idea was that the wood glue on the root edges attached to the body tube would serve as the main structural bracing to hold them in place.

YEs, this was idiotic. Bear with me. My wife was in a serious car accident, and I was distracted, and using the build to relax myself a bit.

Anyway, here are the fins, properly aligned, tacked with a drop of glue on the top surface of each, drying.



And here is a picture of the fins after I pried them off the glass after remembering that FRAKING CA STICKS TO FRAKING GLASS.



Yeah, chewed some of them up good. Left some wood behind on the glass.



Oh well. I used some CWF, filled in the messed up parts, and sealed the wood filler with some thin CA after sanding them down flush. Problem resolved.

Major fail number one remediated!

Oh, here is a picture of the fixed fins:

Oh yeah. I remember that being my favorite DOM from way back. I built one from scratch. Having no idea what happened to it between the times of being a 2X bar, I decided to build another one. Only this one was going to have a BT70 airframe. It's a classic picture. Having no idea what that fin logo/symbol was, I opted out and did my own thing.

Meanwhile, I glued the various pod cones onto the pod tubes. You can see some of the soaked in wood glue on the rear pod cones.



That, at least, proceeded without incident.

The next steps involved cutting the extra small nose cone in half and sanding it so it would fit flush on the BT 55 body tube. That was easy, following the directions and carefully moving the cone flat-side-down on some sandpaper wrapped around the body tube.



Then the crew module or whatever it's called needed to be similarly sanded. This took probably 30-45 minutes of cautious sanding:



I should have sanded it a bit more, it turns out, to get it to sit fully flush. There will be pictures eventually. This is one of the smaller cosmetic goofs.

Next up: making the forward launch lug tube holder. The kit comes with a few pieces of balsa that get glued together to make a U-channel, your round some edges, and the lug goes in. Or at least, it's supposed to:



A bit of sanding with a nail file made short work of that challenge.

Just so you know, the Starship Excalibur has a tendency to arc a bit in flight. It's a given with this design, but it sure looks good.

Gary Byrum said:

Oh yeah. I remember that being my favorite DOM from way back. I built one from scratch. Having no idea what happened to it between the times of being a 2X bar, I decided to build another one. Only this one was going to have a BT70 airframe. It's a classic picture. Having no idea what that fin logo/symbol was, I opted out and did my own thing.

Click to expand...

Nice one! I'm definitely going to eventually upscale this puppy, much like you did!

I will continue the build thread tomorrow if time permits. Otherwise, it will be Tuesday before I can get back to it, as I'm headed to visit with my Dad for his 80th birthday.

Marc

Here's a video of the first launch. My chutes got caught up on the pods. Make sure you use a longer shock cord. 3' should suffice for that bird.

https://s343.photobucket.com/user/glbyrum/media/StarshipExcalibur_zps2d3fadee.mp4.html?o=13

Marc_G said:

Oh, here is a picture of the fixed fins:

View attachment 264280

Click to expand...

Looks good to me! If you've got more wood than putty, don't sweat it.

I like watching guys fabricate stuff out of steel. Sometimes they'll intentionally weld the piece to the table as a jig, and grind those welds away later. Same principle with the CA on the glass, right?

Dealing with fallout from my wife being rear-ended a month ago has really slowed down my rocketry projects. But if all goes well the thread will continue in a couple of days!

The main body tube was marked according to the instructions:



The tube that gets split for the side bays was marked, and spent motors put inside to provide reinforcing of the tube during cutting. I used some masking tape to hold everything in place and to guide the knife. Once most of the cutting was done, I cut through the masking and the tube beneath.



The curve-sanded nose cone halves were glued to the split body tube, and some glue was used to coat the inside of the tube near the attachment point for reinforcement along the length.



In the above picture you can also see the crescent moon shaped bottoms of the reactor bays.

When everything was dry, I marked where the reactor bays would go, and put a bit of glue around the perimeter. I decided to use double glue joints with Elmer's Carpenter's glue.



After the first coat of glue was nice and dry on the separate pieces, I then attached the bays with a second thin coat of glue. I used some tape to hold things in place.



When everything was dry, it looked pretty good.


I followed up with some thin wood glue fillets. I then attached the second reactor bay in the same way.

This is the most difficult part of this build. Mine being an upscale, required some internal reinforcement on those reactor bays. I actually custom fitted some 20/50 CR's in the tube halves to keep them from spreading apart. They lost their shape after I cut them.

OK, here's where it gets STUPID.

A few posts up, I talked about taking the better part of an hour to sand the big balsa chunk called the crew module, so that it would fit nicely against the round body tube. There are also instructions about where to place the crew module, keeping it 1/4 inch up from the bottom of the body tube. For some reason I got paranoid that I would forget to offset it properly, so I carefully marked where it goes, put a layer of glue down, put on the crew module, taped it in place, checking the offset, then went upstairs for dinner.

Something bugged me during dinner. Went down after eating to check on it. One quick look, then I yelled "SWEET HEAVENLY CRAP!"

Marc_G said:

OK, here's where it gets STUPID.

A few posts up, I talked about taking the better part of an hour to sand the big balsa chunk called the crew module, so that it would fit nicely against the round body tube. There are also instructions about where to place the crew module, keeping it 1/4 inch up from the bottom of the body tube. For some reason I got paranoid that I would forget to offset it properly, so I carefully marked where it goes, put a layer of glue down, put on the crew module, taped it in place, checking the offset, then went upstairs for dinner.

Something bugged me during dinner. Went down after eating to check on it. One quick look, then I yelled "SWEET HEAVENLY CRAP!"

View attachment 266015

Click to expand...

One of the things that rocket building has taught me is that it's not really about getting it right the first time, the genius is figuring out how to fix all the boo-boos. Here's your chance to how us what you got!

Marc_G said:

OK, here's where it gets STUPID.

A few posts up, I talked about taking the better part of an hour to sand the big balsa chunk called the crew module, so that it would fit nicely against the round body tube. There are also instructions about where to place the crew module, keeping it 1/4 inch up from the bottom of the body tube. For some reason I got paranoid that I would forget to offset it properly, so I carefully marked where it goes, put a layer of glue down, put on the crew module, taped it in place, checking the offset, then went upstairs for dinner.

Something bugged me during dinner. Went down after eating to check on it. One quick look, then I yelled "SWEET HEAVENLY CRAP!"

Click to expand...

OH LAWD! Now I have this vision of a Picasso version of a Starship Excalibur! DOOD! That's gonna be a biatch to fix!

So, in my focus on positioning the crew module properly on the tube, I put it on backwards.


There aren't enough facepalm icons in existence to express my feelings. This happened a few weeks ago.... I blame it on the fact that I was still distracted by my wife's medical condition (recovering from accident concussion). In fact I still am to this day. But it's a good reminder that you have to pay attention to all the factors involved.

Fortunately, fixing it actually wasn't that hard.

I marked the proper fin slot position using the existing slot at the top as a guide, then went at it with a hobby knife and a thin screwdriver.



I carefully triple checked position with the fin that goes in there.



I then packed the slot at the top with CWF and smoothed it over.

The whole correction took about 20 minutes, so wasn't THAT bad of a goof, but it did piss me off considerably.

We're now up to last weekend in real time.

I marked where the fins would go, and applied a layer of glue to all mating surfaces, letting it dry.

I prepped a fin alignment jig that is just a cardstock printout with a glued-on engine dead center.

Dry fit everything to be sure it would be OK.



One by one I glued the fins on, making sure the forward parts of them aligned well with the centering marks. I also made sure the fins stuck out at the right angle by siting down and making sure they lined up with the marks on the cardstock. When one needed a bit of a nudge, I did it by hand then used the glue bottle to keep the fin joint from flexing out of position.



When the fins had set up, I put a thin layer of Carpenter's glue on as a first fillet.



And that's where she sits today. Next step will be to attach the pods.

The instructions call for pod attachment first, before putting the fins on, but I find it easier to do pods after the fins are securely fastened to the rocket and aligned with the body tube.

Here! This ought to make you feel a little bit better. I didn't even notice this on my upscale Sprite until AFTER I painted it. This is a very recent error and I'm still patching up the fix.

PS: I have not forgotten the launch lug! It's just not on yet...

Gary Byrum said:

Here! This ought to make you feel a little bit better. I didn't even notice this on my upscale Sprite until AFTER I painted it. This is a very recent error and I'm still patching up the fix.

Click to expand...

Oh my! That's a bit of a pickle. Fin alignment is one of my obsessions / frustration points so that would annoy me even more than my crew module slip up. ;-)

Marc_G said:

Oh my! That's a bit of a pickle. Fin alignment is one of my obsessions / frustration points so that would annoy me even more than my crew module slip up. ;-)

Click to expand...

I'm super anal about fin alignment as well. I still don't know what happened. It was straight when I left it and glue was nearly dry.

Regarding gluing you pods on after the fin attachment, I did this also. I also mounted the crew module and reactor bays after the fin attachment as well. It assured me of a snug fit to the fin. I had to sand the slots to fit like I wanted them to.

Nice orbital transport in the background, and I like what you did with the bevel-strip at the join of the crew module with the tube... Well done!

Marc_G said:

Nice orbital transport in the background, and I like what you did with the bevel-strip at the join of the crew module with the tube... Well done!

Click to expand...

That OT is really not an OT. It's a spinoff. Two gliders, changed the fins configs and decals. But this is not about my builds. We're watching you put one of our favorite designs together. BTW, it's almost impossible to forget the launch lugs on the SE. They have their own exterior aesthetics. Hard to forget them.

Pods are going on tonight... pictures this weekend!

This was pod preprep. I used the brace to position the pods so I could do any necessary sanding, which I did have to do.

The build has been progressing, and Starship Excalibur is in its first coat of primer. Let me catch you guys up on what I've done.

When I left off, the fins were on but the pods were not attached. I had put a layer of glue on the fin/pod mating surfaces some time previously, So, to glue the pods on, all that was needed was another thin coat of glue for the second in the double-gluing process. I was careful to align the pod in all axes so it would be in the proper orientation relative to the model. I held it on, in place, for a couple minutes until the double glue joint was strong enough to resist gravity on its own. Repeated another two times.

Here are some pictures looking down on the pods:



After the first round of glue was dry I did a second thin fillet, then a bit of a thicker fillet with Titebond Molding and Trim Glue.



Eventually I set it aside so all fillets could dry.