Some Days You Just Can't Get Rid of a Bomb!!! - aka, Mad Cow Super Batray

I've been wanting to do this for some time, and a couple things happened over the last month or so to make this happen. First, I began to make my own waterslide decals, and second, Mad Cow's Super Batray was on sale this past weekend, so I ordered the kit.

I'm going to do a modification to the design. I have a leftover coupler tube that I can use as an AV bay. So I will cut the upper section of the airframe in two, the glue one part of it to the kit-included coupler, which in turn will be glued to the lower section of air frame. This will extend the booster section by approx. 10". The upper section then becomes the main chute payload bay. This will allow me to use 6XL motors, and keep the rocket stable with the addition of an AV Bay.

The paint scheme will be black with red pinstripes, a la the 1960's TV Batmobile, but I am going to go a step further by adding the decals appropriate to make this rocket as campy as the TV show and the movie. I have found several "fight graphics" online that will become decals (Splatt!!, Pow!!, Kapow!!, Biff!!, etc.) as well as the appropriate logos. The best part is that I found a cartooned image of Adam West/Batman running with a bomb over his head.

Here are the OR files of the modified design, and a little Batman memorabilia that I hope will convey the tone of this rocket. I want to fly it on a J150 Mellow Yellow with the 6XL case, and then on skidmarks with shorter cases.


[YOUTUBE]lWO3C7n7apg[/YOUTUBE]

oint: That's great! LOL! I remember that scene...I was told my daughter about it earlier this year and a few months ago they showed the movie on TV and I got a good laugh again...when the marching band, nuns and baby almost converged on our caped crusader, all seemed lost. Luckily (after waiting a few days when I was a kid watching this on TV), Batman survived! I love it!

They may be drinkers, Robin, but they are human beings, and may be salvaged.

While the rocket is in transit, I decided to work on the decals. What do you think?

GROOVY!

I have exactly this rocket, black with red pinstripes and the old batman symbol... If I can find a picture, I'll post. I love the idea of the campy decals!

Here's the pic

CzTeacherMan said:

Here's the pic

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That is excellent. I have some red pinstripe. It just begs to be campy.

Thinking of adding an "acknowledgement" based off the one in the 1967 movie that was hastily put together. It would read something like this:


Acknowledgement:

We wish to express our gratitude to the enemies of crime and crusaders against crime throughout the world for their inspirational example.

To them, and to the lovers of adventure, lovers of pure escapism, lovers of unadulterated entertainment, lovers of the ridiculous and the bizarre…to fun lovers everywhere this rocket is respectfully dedicated.

…If we have overlooked any sizeable groups of lovers, we apologize.

The rocketeers

Well it finally arrived. Now I have a rocket for all the decals I printed. At least the decals should be well set. I've found if you do not let the fixative cure completely, they tend to curl.

For the most part, this will be a straightforward build, except that I am making this dual deploy. I think this would fly great on a J150 MY, so I need to move the AV Bay forward. To do this, I will glue the tubes together, fill the seams, then cut the forward 10" off. Same length, just instead of 2 19" tubes I have 1 10" and 1 28". This is the plans with the AV Bay moved forward.


For cosmetic reasons, I've decided to paper the fins. Makes for a very smooth painting surface. I traced the fin outline on 11" x 17" paper (2 per sheet) and cut them out. The paper is held in place with 15-min. epoxy. I butter both sides of the fin, attach the paper, then compress between 2 sheets of steel, clamped together. It makes a very flat surface and it doesn't take much time.

Would you mind sharing your OR file? I've had a difficult time try to reproduce the fins, yours looks great!

EeebeeE said:

View attachment 271578 View attachment 271579
[YOUTUBE]lWO3C7n7apg[/YOUTUBE]

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That that is funny.....

Nick@JET said:

Would you mind sharing your OR file? I've had a difficult time try to reproduce the fins, yours looks great!

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I'd like to, but I don't think I should because this is a copyrighted design. Mad Cow has a RockSim file that you can download. However this file is full of protective information that really prohibits the user from making modifications. All weights are set and very difficult to change, the fin appearance is transparent when looking at the 3D renderings, and there are other PITA things to deal with. I chose to go through the painstaking process of making a duplicate of the design in an Open Rocket file. I copied all the x/y coordinates (there were over 40 I believe) as well as all other relevant information, then created a new file from scratch so that I could work with it better. It took me about 2 hours to get it right.

Rocket kit manufacturers and design software programmers:

It would be very beneficial to the hobby for you and other manufacturers to make your RockSim and Open Rocket files more user-friendly. I respect your right to protect your intellectual property, however there needs to be a balance due to the nature of amateur rocketry and builders' desires to make personalized modifications to your kits. Perhaps you could work with the software developers of both to create a non-removable copyright watermark to identify that these are your designs, but still enable us rocketeers to work with your designs so we can safely do things like add payloads, convert single deploy to dual deploy, or other modifications (which we are wont to do) without taking a couple hours to make exact duplicates of your files by rekeying data, which is easy to do, but needlessly time consuming.

Ok, thought was an open source OR file. Good luck with build - the batray is my current work horse but I modified for DD and longer payload section recently so it's a little heavier than I expected and the past motors I've flown H115, H185, are not strong enough - I put in thrust curve so that will work until I can figure out the fins in OR.

The tube sections were glued together. Seams were filled with Bondo Glazing putty, which is a very easy to use 1 part compound that fillsseams nicely and is very easy to sand. I made need one more layer where the tubes were gued together. Holes were drilled for the AV bay vents, upper and lower section vents, and other needs. Then the forward 10" was cut off for a payload section. I have ordered a coupler bulk plate to be used in the nose cone instead of relying on the nose cone connection points. It will be inserted in the nose cone up to the top of the shoulder, and an eyebolt will be used for the shock cord. I will also drill out a 1.5" hole in the center to be used for the tracker. This in my mind is stronger than the plastic connections add also adds some room for the main parachute and other recovery items.

Fillets...Oh joy.

These have always been the bane of my existence because I could never ge them even until I discovered RocketPoxy. Tape off the area where the fillet is to go, add the Rocketpoxy and smooth it out, then remove the tape. I know some people who say to remove the tape as the epoxy gets tacky, but I do it immediately. That way the hard edges made by the tape settle in and the whole thing smooths out. Wait about 10-15 minutes, then with a toothpick, pop any air bubbles. The epoxy will fill the void. This is a very slow curing epoxy so I do 2 fillets at a time and let them set for at least 8 hours.

EeebeeE said:

The tube sections were glued together. Seams were filled with Bondo Glazing putty, which is a very easy to use 1 part compound that fillsseams nicely and is very easy to sand. I made need one more layer where the tubes were gued together. Holes were drilled for the AV bay vents, upper and lower section vents, and other needs. Then the forward 10" was cut off for a payload section. I have ordered a coupler bulk plate to be used in the nose cone instead of relying on the nose cone connection points. It will be inserted in the nose cone up to the top of the shoulder, and an eyebolt will be used for the shock cord. I will also drill out a 1.5" hole in the center to be used for the tracker. This in my mind is stronger than the plastic connections add also adds some room for the main parachute and other recovery items.

View attachment 272934

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Looking good!

Painting started. It got 2 coats of black. tomorrow I will wet-sand with 600 grit sandpaper, because there are a number of coarse areas. I will give it 2 more coats Wednesday. The edges of the fins will be hand painted red. I also have some red pinstripe, but I do not want to overdo it. Decals will go on Thursday. Clearcoat on Saturday. It flies on Sunday.

Black paint finished. Wet-sanded first with 600-grit, then smoothed with 2,000-grit paper. The pinstripe was brushed on because the edges of the fins were so wide I could not find any at the auto parts store wide enough. The decals go on this evening, then the whole thing gets clear coated tomorrow or Saturday. After the clear coat, I will wet-sand with 5,000 grit paper, then polish.

One of my favorite photoshops ever...

Rocket looks awesome Eeebee, good work.

Bat-mite, thats funny lol.

Excellent photo Bat Mite, although I think Jack Nicholson was the best Joker ever. Here it is with decals on. It gets clear coated tomorrow and flies in Geneseo, NY on Sunday.