First build as a BAR: Estes Solar Warrior, #3225

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At least you got in some pics and a couple of flights before losing the fin. Yikes. Looks great.

I finished (?) wet-sanding my white coat and applied Future to the areas where the decals will go. After decals and the blue coat (tomorrow, fingers crossed), I will apply one more coat of future to the whole rocket and be DONE.

The Future looked *very* good on the body tube, but on the fins is didn't really hide the crappy job I did sanding... but the surface is *smooth* and that should be satisfactory for applying decals and such. Just can't spend any more time slaving of the paint on this one model.
 
Today is 1 week since the last coat of white, and I had opportunity and beautiful painting weather so time for blue. The white paint still has a faint smell but screw that.

Masked the lower half of the rocket with blue tape and a plastic bag, with a single stripe of Tamiya 10mm tape covering the actual edge of the white/blue. Here it is on my painting stand (which is working out nicely), ready to go:
masked_for_blue.jpg

The paint for today is Rustoleum Cobalt Blue Metallic. Hcmbanjo said on his blog that the Rusto metallics take two light coats. I tried to apply the learnings from my previous failed white coats: in addition to perfect painting weather (75 degrees, 45% humidity), I did nice steady left-to-right passes, each pass followed by a 1/8 turn of the rocket (approximately), 2 coats 10 minutes apart. I think my coats were a bit on the heavy side of "light", but it looked OK as it was going on.

After reading quite a few opinions about when to remove masking tape and being unable to discern a consensus, I had to just try something and see how it works. So I removed just the Tamiya tape about 10 minutes after the second coat, while the paint was apparently still gummy. This did not result in a perfect edge, although I'm not super concerned because a decal will go there. Next time, though, I will definitely let the paint set more before removing. Nothing got under the tape; any problems were cause by the removal process. No biggie.

Several hours later the paint was handlable, so I removed the rest of the masking and the bag and had a look. And here is the most confounding thing I've encountered so far:
bluetiful.jpg

It is so freakin' perfect that I am sure some new calamity must be waiting to unleash its misery upon me at any moment. i thought while painting that it was going well, but I didn't expect this. So maybe I am learning. In any case, thumbs up to the Rustoleum metallic. It is beautiful. If I did lay it on a bit heavy, it sure doesn't seem to have adversely affected my results.

I haven't decided if I'm going to try to do anything about the slight paint ridge at the mask line. I am afraid of touching the blue and messing it up.

The end is now in sight: decals, a full coat of Future and I suppose I should glue in the engine mount at some point...

Man that metallic blue is gorgeous.
 
I agree! That is a BEAUTIFUL color! I will be looking for some myself in the near future! Thanks for the build thread! I have one of these as well and am enjoying reading your progress!
Today is 1 week since the last coat of white, and I had opportunity and beautiful painting weather so time for blue. The white paint still has a faint smell but screw that.

Masked the lower half of the rocket with blue tape and a plastic bag, with a single stripe of Tamiya 10mm tape covering the actual edge of the white/blue. Here it is on my painting stand (which is working out nicely), ready to go:
View attachment 271977

The paint for today is Rustoleum Cobalt Blue Metallic. Hcmbanjo said on his blog that the Rusto metallics take two light coats. I tried to apply the learnings from my previous failed white coats: in addition to perfect painting weather (75 degrees, 45% humidity), I did nice steady left-to-right passes, each pass followed by a 1/8 turn of the rocket (approximately), 2 coats 10 minutes apart. I think my coats were a bit on the heavy side of "light", but it looked OK as it was going on.

After reading quite a few opinions about when to remove masking tape and being unable to discern a consensus, I had to just try something and see how it works. So I removed just the Tamiya tape about 10 minutes after the second coat, while the paint was apparently still gummy. This did not result in a perfect edge, although I'm not super concerned because a decal will go there. Next time, though, I will definitely let the paint set more before removing. Nothing got under the tape; any problems were cause by the removal process. No biggie.

Several hours later the paint was handlable, so I removed the rest of the masking and the bag and had a look. And here is the most confounding thing I've encountered so far:
View attachment 271978

It is so freakin' perfect that I am sure some new calamity must be waiting to unleash its misery upon me at any moment. i thought while painting that it was going well, but I didn't expect this. So maybe I am learning. In any case, thumbs up to the Rustoleum metallic. It is beautiful. If I did lay it on a bit heavy, it sure doesn't seem to have adversely affected my results.

I haven't decided if I'm going to try to do anything about the slight paint ridge at the mask line. I am afraid of touching the blue and messing it up.

The end is now in sight: decals, a full coat of Future and I suppose I should glue in the engine mount at some point...

Man that metallic blue is gorgeous.
 
Very nice. I saw that same color at the hardware store the other day and picked it up for my Solar Warrior. Glad to see that it turns out so well.
 
Further progress: All decals now on except for the body wrap at the blue/white boundary.

ImageUploadedByRocketry Forum1442581321.097590.jpg

The decals seemed to adhere nicely to the Future I laid down (no Microset or Microsol was used). However, I was a bit careless with the Future, thinking the drips and such would all magically self level out of existence. Nope. Not a big deal, but something I will be more careful with next time.

For the body wrap, I need to smooth down the paint dam first, and I'm awaiting some Microset and Microsol to help it settle in there as tight as possible. I'm gonna try it without any Future underneath, to see whether it was really needed in the first place.
 
Still waiting for the Microsol and Microset in the mail so I can apply the last decal. I wet-sanded the paint dam between the white and blue, causing the blue in that area to haze up a bit. I will be interested to see how it looks after the Future; I'm nervous to touch any of the rest of the blue with sandpaper despite there being a couple of blemishes on the nose cone that could use a bit of smoothing.

In the meantime, I prepared the motor mount for final assembly. I have left it for the very end because (a) I was having a hard time deciding whether to do a Kevlar shock cord mount, and (b) finishing this rocket has been easier with the mount out.

So I decided to go with Kevlar because I had already bought some (135 lb) and what the heck. I tied a loop on one end as "practice knot", and it was a good enough knot that I couldn't easily get it out, so it stayed (I subsequently put a drop of white glue on it just to secure it a bit). Cut it to length (with wire cutters, good tip there) and tied a loop at the other end around the mount, and buried it in a nice fillet of Titebond. It's not going anywhere. When installed, the Kevlar loop should reach to about 1/2" short of the end of the tube, so I should not zipper. Here is the unexciting picture:

motor_mount_with_kevlar.jpg

I subsequently tied about 5' of 1/4" elastic to the loop, and tied a small loop into the elastic about 6" from the nose-cone end, where I will attach the snap-swivel for the parachute. Here's the whole thing.
completed_motor_mount.jpg

Connecting the elastic is the very last thing I will do to complete the rocket, so not yet. The motor mount is now ready for installation. I will actually install it after the last decal and full coat of future have been applied. Almost there.
 
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While crawling to the finish line with the Solar Warrior, I started two new builds: Estes Centuri and Estes Astron Elliptic II. My main goal with these is to see if I can apply what I learned with the Solar Warrior and get these done better and more efficiently/quickly. (!) Mostly focusing on the Centuri right now, although I filled the seems in all the tubes at once just to get that out of the way.

1) Happily, the fin sheet was in good condition, so I didn't need to do any repair work up front.
2) I applied the CWF to both sides of each fin at once, and experience virtually no warpage. So that's a relief.
3) My new Great Plains sanding block, with the 220 grit paper, really sped up shaping the fin edges and removal of the initial heavy layer of CWF. Big win.
4) I primed with Duplicolor this time. I'm not sure I saw abig difference from the Rusto, although I think it dried Once again, removing the heavy initial layer with 220 grit made the finish sanding with 400 much easier. The 400 still clogged pretty quickly, although perhaps it was easier to wash out of the sandpaper. I got one wash-out and then the next time it clogged the paper was pretty much done. All in all, I will probably use up my existing cans of Duplicolor and Rustoleum primer, and then decide what to buy next.

So far things are definitely going more smoothly, and if I didn't have these other builds to work on while the Solar Warrior drags on I'd probably go crazy(er). The next big test will be the white base coat, but I've got some fins to glue first.
 
I did fly mine on an F44-8 Economax... and recovered it. This is a pretty strong kit. I have added a few Oz. of nose weight. You'll like it for it's versatility.
 
Did you get an altimeter reading on that flight???

Also, I was thinking the 18" chute was a bit excessive for this model, was thinking about cutting a hole out the top. Did you use the stock chute?
 
...and to think I was slightly concerned about my Big Daddy on an f32 with papered fins. hahahhaha... F44 on this little thing???
 
Applied the wrap decal using Micro Sol and Micro Set. I can see no silvering whatsoever, which suggests that putting future underneath the other decals may not have been necessary. I would probably still not apply decals directly to flat paint, but the satin-sanded gloss paint seemed to take the decals just fine.

Applied a good coat of Future to the whole rocket except the nose cone, which I think I'm gonna first gonna sand down to fix a few blemishes. Here is the result, as well as I can photograph it for now:
future_finish.jpg

As is reasonably clear from the picture, the parts of the BT that I had successfully sanded down came out super-smooth and glossy, basically perfect. Not as visible in the picture are the areas that I was less successful sanding; the Future did not hide the slight bit of texture that I had left on some areas of paint. Moral: given a smooth surface, Future will produce a beautiful gloss, but it will not hide all imperfections.

Also, I tried to apply the stuff more liberally this time, working from top down, to minimize drips. Still got a couple of small ones where I had to touch up afterwards, but not bad. Working with the Future is not super fun, apart from the smell it inevitably drips a lot and gets very sticky very quickly. But the results are good and it's relatively easy, and I can do it in my basement (no spraying).

Still to be analyzed is the area at the edge of the blue paint where I had wet-sanded to reduce the paint dam; I *think* you can't see the sanding area under the future, but I need to look more closely. This determines whether, in general, I can safely sand only certain areas, without creating differences in finish.
 
Looking good! I busted my kit open yesterday and got the tube spirals filled and some of the fin parts glued together. I really like the alignment jig included in the balsa sheets.
 
Did you get an altimeter reading on that flight???

Also, I was thinking the 18" chute was a bit excessive for this model, was thinking about cutting a hole out the top. Did you use the stock chute?

I use the stock chute, but I've added weight to the nose... without the added weight, I think it would drift a lot!
 
...and to think I was slightly concerned about my Big Daddy on an f32 with papered fins. hahahhaha... F44 on this little thing???

It holds! My fins are papered over the seam on the little triangular fin at the front. I didn't trust it. I don't know why estes just didn't make the main fins one piece..
The 8 second coast is just about ideal from the smoke trail. You can't see the rocket at that height.
 
Did you get an altimeter reading on that flight???

Also, I was thinking the 18" chute was a bit excessive for this model, was thinking about cutting a hole out the top. Did you use the stock chute?

I do have a Jolly Logic 2... and an 808 cam. Maybe when I'm on a bigger field in two months with SARG. I'll bet it'll come in 2100-2200 feet.
 
I purchased several kits at once from Estes, to keep shipping on those lovely clearance rockets down. For kits we got 3 Flutter-Bys, Chuter-Two, Photon Probe, Solar Warrior, and I've already built two of the Flutter-Bys. :) One thing I remember from when I did this as a kid is that rockets WILL get lost or destroyed, so it's better to have several!
 
I think the chute is a little oversized for this kit. I don't have any metrics, but I remember that It took a while to come down.

I just bought a second Solar Warrior kit to use for parts to repair mine from Amazon last night: $10.79 + free shipping )if you are a member of Amazon Prime) = Too good of a deal to pass up.
 
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Hi, new here, great site! My 1st flight and rocket build was with the DER RED MAX/BIGFOOT launcher combo kit back in oh, around 1980-81. Then i went on to the Estes Vigilante, and A-20 Demon. I lost the Red Max that same year as it got caught somewhere, could never find it. I think it went down into a fast flowing creek. I ordered the new repro Estes Der Red Max from Estes, and i'm in the process of painting it right now. I still have the Vigilante and A-20 Demon, and Bigfoot launcher which are retired due to the fact they are both vintage rockets. Great to see this hobby is still alive and kicking it! i gotta get me one of those Solar Warriors! nice Rocket. As a BAR? I just recently got back into the hobby after a 20 year hiatus. My 1st rocket build about a month ago was the Estes Twister. I bought it because it is discontinued, saw it in a hobby shop and swiped that sucker right away. Next was the Estes Storm Caster, now on my new kit, the Der Red Max. I just ordered the Estes Goblin, i should get it in 2 weeks. : )
 
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Well, I'm basically done. I did indeed sand and repaint the nose cone (just one more quick coat) and I'm glad I did, because it really improved things a lot. A liberal coating of Future was applied, and here it is, basically finished*:

FullSizeRender 6.jpg

It came out good I think. The blue is almost perfect, the white has all kinds of problems but it still looks good enough. I think I'll do much better with the painting next time.

One slightly alarming detail is that I weighed it tonight and it came out to almost 4.5 oz... it's listed in the catalog at 3.1. :eyepop: Apparently I build heavy. The 4.5' of 1/4" sewing elastic shock cord is probably contributing at least some of the additional weight, but other than that, I dunno. Too much paint?

Anyway, looks like this may be a good candidate for a composite E, if I have conditions right (I will certainly start smaller though!) I will post back here with flight results and I'll see if I can get some better beauty shots than the one above.

*shock cord is still not attached to nose cone, but not much to document about that.
 
Well, I'm basically done. I did indeed sand and repaint the nose cone (just one more quick coat) and I'm glad I did, because it really improved things a lot. A liberal coating of Future was applied, and here it is, basically finished*:

View attachment 273483

It came out good I think. The blue is almost perfect, the white has all kinds of problems but it still looks good enough. I think I'll do much better with the painting next time.

One slightly alarming detail is that I weighed it tonight and it came out to almost 4.5 oz... it's listed in the catalog at 3.1. :eyepop: Apparently I build heavy. The 4.5' of 1/4" sewing elastic shock cord is probably contributing at least some of the additional weight, but other than that, I dunno. Too much paint?

Anyway, looks like this may be a good candidate for a composite E, if I have conditions right (I will certainly start smaller though!) I will post back here with flight results and I'll see if I can get some better beauty shots than the one above.

*shock cord is still not attached to nose cone, but not much to document about that.

Looks great, mine is 5.3 Oz. with the nose weight, but it still flies fine on a D12-5. Composites though are amazing on this rocket. I dared a F44-8W and it flew fast and straight. The kit is solid.
 
I went to a hobby shop yesterday for some supplies, and i spotted the Solar Warrior kit hanging on the wall, so of course i bought it. This is one rocket i will take my time on. This thread will be REALLY helpful thanks to the O.P.
 
I used X-Acto saw blades, i forgot what number they are, to cut the plastic pieces from the nose cone.DSCF0350.jpg I lightly and carefully cut while turning the cone until cut all the way through. This left a clean cut. Then i sanded the seams smooth. That is the only thing i've done so far!! LOL
 
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So the Solar Warrior *finally* flew on a crystal-clear afternoon at Godlewsky Farm today, and I was relieved to see that she flew straight as an arrow, warped fins and all. The blue metallic paint got some appreciation.

For the early flights, the wind was a bit strong, so most of the rockets were weathercocking a fair bit, and the Solar Warrior was no exception (not too bad though).

First flight: C11-3, deployment almost exactly at apogee, rocket landed on the launch control table. :) Not super high but otherwise perfect. This engine is a reasonable choice for small fields (although not too small).

Second flight: D12-5, deployment a bit after apogee (not too bad though), rocket landed about 40 yards from the pad.

I had cut a spill hole in the chute because I really don't think this rocket needs a full 18"er. I'd say it was a good choice, descent was still totally fine.

Later in the day, the wind died down so I got brave and stuck in an Aerotech E15-7W (my first composite engine). And up it went... and up... and up... Hard to know how high it went, but it was way over 1000', possibly over 1500'. Need to sim it and get an estimate. I don't know how close to apogee the ejection was, because frankly it was a bit hard to see up there. And then began the descent... took about 3 minutes, spill hole and all. I didn't know if it was ever coming down. It eventually landed, after all that time, about 50 yards from the pad. This flight was definitely the highlight of the day for me. I would definitely only use that engine in a large field on a very calm day, though.

Overall, it flew fantastically and looked great doing so. It's a winner. I expect it to see a lot of flights in the future.

Oh, and after the three flights the only damage (if you can call it that) was slight scuff on the nose cone from where it landed on the launch table. Other than that, it looks pristine.

'Twas a great day!
 
Just a quick on CA'ing a body what I found that works great and keeps it off your fingers is take a zip lock bag and lay flat on a hard surface. If you want you can tape it down.

Make a puddle of CA and then just take the body and place it in the puddle and spin it until the edge is soaked. Do the same for the other end. The CA won't stick to the plastic. I've done this procedure with balsa nose cones and it works great Holding the nose cone by the shoulder simply twirl it around at an angle to get the tip and gradually lower it until the entire nose cone is covered. I hate getting CA on my fingers....messy
 
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