Another Saturn IB

MaxQ said:

Dave - coming along nicely.

Those eight fins set into the fin can shroud are a big challenge, looks like so far - you got it licked.
Any thoughts on how to do the permanent fin attachment yet? Like to know more on how you are doing that.

I'm worried on my project - keeping them resistant to hard ground hits on recovery, especially if it hits diagonally or gets dragged.

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I should be starting on the fins this weekend before my next trip starts on Sunday. The plan is to laminate the birch with balsa on either side sanded to shape. I'll then be wrapping them in CF, so they should be quite rugged. They are through the wall, and I'll be reinforcing them inside the fin can with CF as well. I think they'll be able to stand up to a beating.

that looks AWESOME!!! well done!!!

I started the weekend by taking advantage of the sunshine and warmth while it lasted. I cut a number of centering rings for the upper stages, and made some mandrels. I did find a limitation of my circle cutter however. The 5.5 inch diameter hole I need for my upper blue tube falls right smack dab in the middle of my router's bas plate. So I ordered a special hole cutter for that one. It's not urgent at this point anyways.

I also cut some that would fit on my mailer tubes to make my mandrels. I have a regular cylindrical one for the service module, and one for the LEM transition. They'll both be covered with a thick mylar and then layered with fiberglass. I know I could have done it in place, but this allows me some overhang to trim, and offers me the option of redoing it if I mess up.



They may not look pretty but they don't have to. The mylar will give it the shape... these are just supports.

I had considered doing the glassing this weekend, but I'm running low on epoxy and highway closures make for weekend traffic jams. I'm leaving on another work trip tomorrow so I'll do that when I return in 2 weeks.

So it's time to finally start with the fins!

Meet my new favourite tool! This is so much easier than cutting each piece by hand. Also, when I cut balsa with a knife or razor, it's never straight vertically.



Now remember my plan is to make 12 fins and take the best 8. So that means cutting 24 of these out of 3/8" balsa. Instead of 3 or four days of constant work, I was able to get them all done in about 1.5 hours.



With a little glue I now have a built up fin ready for shaping and a carbon fiber jacket!



See you in a couple of weeks!

Well, I'm back and I have two more weeks to get stuff done before my next trip.

Continuing with the fins, I continue to make the built up fins two at a time. These are a little finicky so I don't want to rush it. I ran out of wood glue so this is on pause until I get back to the hardware store. I also did the 3D modeling for my sanding templates. I'll show those when I get around to printing them.



So in the meantime, I started work on the upper airframe components. LEM shroud is complete, although it will definitely need to be trimmed to size. The black streaks you see are where I marked the FG with a sharpie. This will all be primed, sanded, primed, filled, primed, painted, etc... so I'm not too worried about colour bleed.



Running low on the thick mylar, I had to recycle the piece I used for the LEM shroud. I'm making this 50% oversized in case I need to thicken to part where I use sheer pins. I can always use the coupler technique to make that a little less likely to shred when the pins sheer. So the service module body is now curing.



I was thinking of assembling the inner structure, but I have two problems. First is I'm out of glue and I don't want to leave the house today. The second is my centering rings. As I mentioned before, the pin for the 5.5" hole is right under the router baseplate. It can be done, but it's problematic. So I bout a 5.5" hole saw. Problem solved, right? Nope. I tried three centering rings for the service module. One came out great, but the other two shifted despite clamping as the bit cut into the plywood resulting in off center cuts. Le sigh. Additionally, the larger rings for the S-IVB stage won't fit in my drill press. So I pull out the power drill. Unfortunately the bit size is too large for my drill. So I'll try again with the router later this week.

But hey, progress!

Almost done with the fin blanks, but in the meantime more work on the upper airframe.

I glued the transition in place and trimmed the ends. I also cut the service module to size. I still need to make some centering rings before it can be glued into place. The space between the SM fuselage and the inner blue tube will be used for BB's as nose weight, so that will have to wait until I get a better handle on the final mass of the individual sections.



Now that I'm getting all the pieces in place I'm starting to get a feel for the scale of the thing. It was all academic up to this point, but dang this thing is going to be tall!



And, as a shout out to @NJRick, with a penny for scale! :lol:



(If you haven't checked out his build thread, check here: https://www.rocketryforum.com/showt...-Saturn-1b-build-thread&p=1640518#post1640390 It's truly impressive!)

I'll probably have more airframe updates over the next few days

grandcross said:

Now that I'm getting all the pieces in place I'm starting to get a feel for the scale of the thing. It was all academic up to this point, but dang this thing is going to be tall!

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Heh heh........................Yeah.
!

You decide your break points?
The main coming out of the top of the SM?

Or are you making DD separation points lower?

MaxQ said:

Heh heh........................Yeah.
!

You decide your break points?
The main coming out of the top of the SM?

Or are you making DD separation points lower?

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I've definitely given this a lot of thought. Top of the SM makes the most sense to me. I had thought the bottom for a while, but that would make it difficult (not impossible) to use shear pins, and with one more cut to make.

penny for scale? HA!! how about your house for scale shot?
Man she is beautiful! How tall do you expect her to be when completed? I think my 1b is going to be smaller than your LES tower!

grandcross said:

Almost done with the fin blanks, but in the meantime more work on the upper airframe.

I glued the transition in place and trimmed the ends. I also cut the service module to size. I still need to make some centering rings before it can be glued into place. The space between the SM fuselage and the inner blue tube will be used for BB's as nose weight, so that will have to wait until I get a better handle on the final mass of the individual sections.

View attachment 305952View attachment 305951

Now that I'm getting all the pieces in place I'm starting to get a feel for the scale of the thing. It was all academic up to this point, but dang this thing is going to be tall!

View attachment 305950

And, as a shout out to @NJRick, with a penny for scale! :lol:

View attachment 305949

(If you haven't checked out his build thread, check here: https://www.rocketryforum.com/showt...-Saturn-1b-build-thread&p=1640518#post1640390 It's truly impressive!)

I'll probably have more airframe updates over the next few days

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I just stand and watch yours and MaxQ's builds with amazement.....just beautiful work!

As I promised, some structural work. My update was slowed by two days of laziness combined with a reluctance to run out to Home Depot on Back Friday or Saturday. People. Ugh.

I cut 3 centering rings for the Service Module. One is at the base, glued into place. One is at the top just fitted into place for now. SM glued into place. Before this is sealed up, I'll be adding BBs for nose weight, so it will be a nearly last step. I may place a CR on top of that, hence the third ring, but that will depend on how much space it fills.



Up next are the rings for the S-IVB stage. One is butted up against the transition for support of the front of the body tube. The next two are the ends of the avionics bay. With 3x1/4" static pressure ports (hidden in the ullage rockets), I can get away with about a 9" avionics bay. (https://www.vernk.com/AltimeterPortSizing.htm - assuming an effective diameter of 6.5" = 12 - 5.5) I really only need about 3, so I split the difference and made it 6. There will be separate mounts for each flight computer to allow switching between rockets. This meant cutting 4 all threads to length and gluing them into place (it's hard to put a nut on a free spinning all thread!) A nut was glued onto the all thread, a washer glued to that, and then it was glued onto the centering ring. More epoxy was added to make sure none of this slips. After that was dry, it was epoxied on the other side.

The aft ring is not glued into place yet. That will happen last. First up, it was used to align the all threads. When the glue was dry, access holes were cut in the centering ring. Covers were cut which will be attached using wing nuts.



I'm now ready to attach the S-IVB body tube, but I'm out of rocketpoxy. The next batch arrives on Wednesday.



While I was checking placement of various features, I noticed a mistake I'd made. I cut my S-IVB body tube 1" too short. I'm not about to start a new one from scratch, and this equates to a less than 1% error on my total length of 118.5 inches (the adjusted length), but I'll unfortunately always know it's there. Le sigh. It will also require adjustments to some other pieces as well. The missing inch will be between the stringers on the S-IVB where the impact should be minimal.

grandcross said:

As I promised, some structural work. My update was slowed by two days of laziness combined with a reluctance to run out to Home Depot on Back Friday or Saturday.

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"two days of laziness"

A little too much turkey there, eh?

Looking good.

Oh, BTW:

Dave: I've been pondering a couple of things on "the project".
I have been revising some of my design thoughts, based on recovery harness hard point locations and hardware.
Thought I would send you a PM, you being a L 3 and all.

PM away, bearing in mind that I'm a recent L3 with a single M powered flight under my belt

If I can't answer, I'd be happy to pass on any questions to my L3 advisor whom I believe is following this thread.

grandcross said:

PM away, bearing in mind that I'm a recent L3 with a single M powered flight under my belt
If I can't answer, I'd be happy to pass on any questions to my L3 advisor whom I believe is following this thread.

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Well that's one more than me. PM on the way.

Got my shipment of Rocketpoxy so I started assembly. I glued the forward ring of the electronics bay in place, then the fuselage. This led to an oops moment.

One of my recovery controllers is the TeleMetrum which also has a HAM band telemetry link and GPS tracker (I really, really like getting my rockets back!) With the antenna, it's longer than my ebay. I usually use a hollow plexiglass rod poking through the ebay to hold the antenna in place and prevent any ejection gases from entering the ebay. Gases won't be a problem in this case as it will be in an enclosed compartment, but I still need it to keep the antenna in place and to keep my ebay within the limits required by my vent holes. I had intended to drill the hole in the CR before gluing it into place but forgot. So off I go to the hardware store to get a very long drill bit. Crisis averted. Using epoxy, I plug one end of the tube and glue it into place.



You can just see the opening of the rod through the access panel. It's bigger than it looks. I then glued the rear ebay centering ring into place. I still need to add the fillets to the CR. Here you can see it with the access panels in place.



Speaking of access panels, I'm using the access panel on the real S-IVB interstage to access my electronics. You can see the hole cut here. I have a FG reinforcement that will go around the inside of the fuselage at this point to both strengthen the fuselage, and to give me a place to mount a nut-bolt combo that will secure the hatch in place. That's next, but not today.



Well, that's it until after the new year. I'm on the road in south east Asia for the next six weeks for both work and vacation. It really is going to be tough to get this flying in time for URRF. I'm home for a full month after that though so we'll see how much I can get done then.

Happy building season to one and all!

grandcross said:

Got my shipment of Rocketpoxy so I started assembly. I glued the forward ring of the electronics bay in place, then the fuselage. This led to an oops moment.
One of my recovery controllers is the TeleMetrum which also has a HAM band telemetry link and GPS tracker (I really, really like getting my rockets back!) With the antenna, it's longer than my ebay. I usually use a hollow plexiglass rod poking through the ebay to hold the antenna in place and prevent any ejection gases from entering the ebay. Gases won't be a problem in this case as it will be in an enclosed compartment, but I still need it to keep the antenna in place and to keep my ebay within the limits required by my vent holes. I had intended to drill the hole in the CR before gluing it into place but forgot. So off I go to the hardware store to get a very long drill bit. Crisis averted. Using epoxy, I plug one end of the tube and glue it into place.
View attachment 306542View attachment 306541
You can just see the opening of the rod through the access panel. It's bigger than it looks. I then glued the rear ebay centering ring into place. I still need to add the fillets to the CR. Here you can see it with the access panels in place.
View attachment 306538
Speaking of access panels, I'm using the access panel on the real S-IVB interstage to access my electronics. You can see the hole cut here. I have a FG reinforcement that will go around the inside of the fuselage at this point to both strengthen the fuselage, and to give me a place to mount a nut-bolt combo that will secure the hatch in place. That's next, but not today.
View attachment 306540View attachment 306539
Well, that's it until after the new year. I'm on the road in south east Asia for the next six weeks for both work and vacation. It really is going to be tough to get this flying in time for URRF. I'm home for a full month after that though so we'll see how much I can get done then.
Happy building season to one and all!

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Nice work. IIRC - this follows up on the previous vented/Av Bay discussion from awhile back.
As I understand it, you have effectively compartmentalized the volume of the Av bay with bulkheads - where venting for the barometric electronics for recovery components will occur.
This is in forward part of the airframe (the nice hand rolled fiberglass shell with the internal blue tube core) - below the CM/SM - and above the eight tank tubes of the lower airframe, correct?
Dave: In the last picture, is that white part (with the hatch - as seen in the middle pictures in post #100) a new FG tube component? Or quarter panels enclosing the Av Bay - Material looks different. Just curious.

Have a good trip.
See you on the flip side.

MaxQ said:

Nice work. IIRC - this follows up on the previous vented/Av Bay discussion from awhile back.
As I understand it, you have effectively compartmentalized the volume of the Av bay with bulkheads - where venting for the barometric electronics for recovery components will occur.
This is in forward part of the airframe (the nice hand rolled fiberglass shell with the internal blue tube core) - below the CM/SM - and above the eight tank tubes of the lower airframe, correct?
Dave: In the last picture, is that white part (with the hatch - as seen in the middle pictures in post #100) a new FG tube component? Or quarter panels enclosing the Av Bay - Material looks different. Just curious.

Have a good trip.
See you on the flip side.

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Yes, this is the S-IVB stage compartmentalized to reduce the volume required for the AV bay. The section at the top (bottom, it's upside down!) looks like a different material but it's not. It's just letting the light in while the other compartments do not.

looks awesome so far!!

Hello! I'm back! After 6 weeks in south east Asia I'm ready to start building again

Since I still haven't sorted out my printing issues, I sent my design to a local guy who printed my fin templates for me. These will be used for shaping the fins. It's not an exact match, but this will show you the sort of challenge I'm facing:



This is a complex shape with the fin tapered from root to tip, and another from near the trailing edge to leading edge. One option would have been to use a built up fin, and for a lower powered model I would have. I prefer the solid approach.

So I broke this up into two steps. Step one is the root to tip taper. I created a form that fits over the root and the portion I left on the time. It needs some fine tuning, but the will allow me to make the proper taper.



Once shaped, another template will be used to create the trailing edge to leading edge taper.



I have 12 of these to make so I'll be sanding for a while. I wish it was warmer out. Then I can clad them in CF and add the 8 best to my fin can.

I'll post pictures as I go. Tally Ho!

grandcross said:

I have 12 of these to make so I'll be sanding for a while. I wish it was warmer out. Then I can clad them in CF and add the 8 best to my fin can.

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Send the 3-4 worst my way? Be happy to put them to good use

dhbarr said:

Send the 3-4 worst my way? Be happy to put them to good use

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And save you the joy of all that sanding? :lol:

Seriously though, I'm doing this in anticipation of some major screw ups. I'd be happy to share my template files to anyone who wants them. I had two of each printed for those too in anticipation of wear and tear with my sander.

The weather is good, and the Steelers have the late game, so it's time to do some sanding! I definitely did not want to do this in the house.

I'm starting with the root to tip taper. I did the first side using a sanding block, primarily because my palm sander was in the basement and I was too lazy to go get it, but also to see how difficult it would be. It's not, but that is a lot of balsa to sand through. For the second side, I got the palm sander. It went much quicker (obviously) and didn't have any issues getting tight to the sanding guides. The guide wasn't a perfect fit, but I'd say fin 1 is a success! Now on to the remaining 11.

grandcross said:

.......The guide wasn't a perfect fit, but I'd say fin 1 is a success! Now on to the remaining 11.

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Eleven?

Looking good so far!!

MaxQ said:

Eleven?

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Yes, I'm building a few spares and taking the 8 best. Just from sanding, I can tell some of them suck! And while I am confident in my abilities, I'm also a realist.

grandcross said:

Yes, I'm building a few spares and taking the 8 best. Just from sanding, I can tell some of them suck! And while I am confident in my abilities, I'm also a realist.

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Good plan.
I had to ditch two fins that showed warping .

WOW looking AWESOME and looks like a fun build.

Just so you know I now have a file for the 1/70th scale saturn 1b that is a pretty much full wrap with all the tiny details..

if you are interested I could upscale this and fit it to you saturn!

I have been wanting to offer this as a set but have not had to many rockets to try it on yet... right now I have one customer building the 1/70th scale rocket and I should know pretty soon how it works out!

stickershock23 said:

WOW looking AWESOME and looks like a fun build.

Just so you know I now have a file for the 1/70th scale saturn 1b that is a pretty much full wrap with all the tiny details..

if you are interested I could upscale this and fit it to you saturn!

I have been wanting to offer this as a set but have not had to many rockets to try it on yet... right now I have one customer building the 1/70th scale rocket and I should know pretty soon how it works out!

View attachment 310026

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Sounds great (and looks great!) except I plan on adding a lot of those details with actual parts. This rocket is far too large, and I've put in far too much effort to be happy with a wrap.

I was already planning to talk to you about decals though, so if you're up for it I'll let you know what I'd need. Some of it would be similar to what you have in your Saturn V decal set.

Not sure what MaxQ was thinking for his...

And yes, it's a fun build!

grandcross said:

Not sure what MaxQ was thinking for his...

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I had spoken wth a local graphics guy but I've not gotten confirmation.

Mine is pretty close to 1/23rd scale.

Looking for the letters and maybe dome detailing.
Corrugations will be 3D - parts.