APRO Lander II Build Thread

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What motor? (Gary, you're free to answer this as well :)) I've been thinking that something in the range E15 - E20 would be ideal for this.

I have considered the possibility of flying this on incomplete finish, if it keeps dragging out too much longer.

D12 Neil. Playing it safe for the maiden launch. It's definitely going to require an E or an F motor to get any altitude with it. Prolly got 150-200 feet at best. I have videos of the weekend event that I haven't gotten around to yet. I have one for this flight. Still fighting off the sod field hangover. My poor lil azz is tired this Monday.

and TY Lowpuller. :grin:
 
D12 Neil. Playing it safe for the maiden launch. It's definitely going to require an E or an F motor to get any altitude with it. Prolly got 150-200 feet at best.

Yeah, that's reasonable for the maiden; I forgot that you maybe hadn't flown the new one before. I think a composite E15 is going to be the ideal motor for this one; with a 29mm mount an F15 would probably become a good choice, although tail-heaviness would then need to be dealt with a serious problem.

I guess I'll just have to give up my dreams of setting altitude records with this model. ;)
 
Now we're talking:
ImageUploadedByRocketry Forum1496798774.126290.jpg

That's about as good as I'm capable of. Needs a few more days to cure, then red masking begins.

At this point it's pretty clear to me: paint followed by sanding followed by on final heavy coat is the most straightforward way to get a good smooth paint job.
 
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Time to mask for the red coat.

To mask around the fin "muscle", I decided to try something new. I traced around the fin with my Tamiya flexible tape, so I was able to mask the whole curve with a single piece:
ImageUploadedByRocketry Forum1497264187.463819.jpg

Even using the narrow 3mm tape, making that tight a curve was a challenge.

Then I applied my Tamiya regular yellow tape:
ImageUploadedByRocketry Forum1497264202.939704.jpg

And the filled in the remaining area with blue tape:
ImageUploadedByRocketry Forum1497264215.780969.jpg

Now ready for a painting opportunity.

(Also need to remember to apply the vinyl numbers to the fins before painting.)
 
I should also have mentioned that I found an area alongside the muscle on one of the fins where the white coat did not have complete coverage. In a sane world, I would have given it a quick shot of white to fix it. In my world, that would have meant a delay the red coat an undetermined amount, so I decided to just live with it for now. It's on the same side of the rocket as the launch lug, so that won't be the side I photograph or display anyway.

It's possible that I could fix it before applying Future at the very end of the finishing process. We'll see.
 
Spray a little white into a small Dixie cup and then brush it on where needed for touch-ups. :wink:
 
Final touch on masking:
ImageUploadedByRocketry Forum1497402989.571796.jpg

After painting red, that'll come off, leaving white numbers. I pressed it to my thumb a few times before putting it on the rocket, to dull the adhesive a bit.

Vinyl generously provided by Byrumshock23. Thanks Gary!
 
Got a decent (I think) coat of red on yesterday. God willing, painting is complete. Over the weekend I'll pull off the masking and see how looks. Then it's vinyl time!
 
Unmasking is nerve-racking.
After removing everything tonight, it looked mostly pretty good:
ImageUploadedByRocketry Forum1497833951.167616.jpg

My curvy Tamiya tape seemed to do pretty well around the fin muscle. Only in one spot did it really bleed:
ImageUploadedByRocketry Forum1497833966.283069.jpg

That was cleaned up pretty easily with a #11 blade. There are a few spots at the tail of the rocket around the engine mount that'll need to be touched up by hand; I'll get around to that eventually.

Recall that I used vinyl "4"s to mask the fins. The first one came off nicely:
ImageUploadedByRocketry Forum1497833976.414400.jpg

The second one, not so much:
ImageUploadedByRocketry Forum1497833983.265015.jpg

It pulled off the white paint and a good bit of the surface papering of the fin (which I suppose was pretty well joined to the paint.) "Bummer". Haven't decided yet the absolute best way to fix this, but I'll manage something. Fortunately, the "4"s aren't really the most important design feature of the rocket, so if it isn't absolutely perfecto then it'll be OK. But I guess sticking the vinyl to my thumb several times was not sufficient to weaken it up. Next time I shall apply it to my pants, to pick up some lint.

Getting the roll pattern wrap perfectly positioned was a chore, but I eventually got it (after several failed attempts):
ImageUploadedByRocketry Forum1497833998.635855.jpg

Hard to see in the picture, but I spliced an extra piece of red just in front of the lug, because the wrap had to stop at the lug fillets and left a gap. Looked very good, but could still be better. Fortunately I was prepared with some extra pieces:
ImageUploadedByRocketry Forum1497834011.423887.jpg

That's an extra piece wrapped around the lug, so now it's part of the roll pattern. The lug looks very well integrated into the decor now, I'm very happy with the way it turned out.

Here's the meatball I came up with for this rocket, mostly based on an initial design from Mark Hayes:
ImageUploadedByRocketry Forum1497834031.074956.jpg

Not bad given my meager graphics skills.

And here's where it stands right now (no pun intended): Everything is on except the windows, which will take some special effort and preparation. I'll get to them soon I hope.
attachment.php


Hey, it looks like a real rocket now! :)
 

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Hand paint the interior of the 4?

Yeah, something like that. Need to figure out if there's anything I should do to the roughed-up paper that has been exposed, or if I should just paint over it. I won't be able to sand the "4" without messing up the rest of the fin, so it'll need to be something the doesn't require sanding. Maybe I'll just put down a layer or two of white paint in there and see how it feels.

That's purdy Neil.

Thank you sir. Really looking forward to getting the windows on to finish it up.
 
Yeah, something like that. Need to figure out if there's anything I should do to the roughed-up paper that has been exposed, or if I should just paint over it. I won't be able to sand the "4" without messing up the rest of the fin, so it'll need to be something the doesn't require sanding. Maybe I'll just put down a layer or two of white paint in there and see how it feels..

Mask off the "4". sand off as much paint as possible. and paint white again. If you have (prolly don't) one of the peeled digits, reapply it and hand paint the center red.
 
To apply the windows, I first laid a paper-printed version in place on the rocket, and marked the center point where it positioned between each pair of fins with blue tape:
FullSizeRender 2.jpg

Then I cut the wrap (provided by Gary, thanks again dude) into pieces with two windows each, and positioned each one carefully between two pieces of tape. This was a 50-50 combination of using the tape markers and eyeballing it to make sure it looked right.

And voila:
apro_final - 1.jpg

In parallel, I am working on fixing the second "4". I think I have a good plan, will take a couple days before it's done and then I'll report back here (needs a couple days for paint to dry).

By the way, here's the rocket's lovely fat bottom (queue Queen), which I failed to show in the previous post:
FullSizeRender 3.jpg

If you click for the full-sized version, you can see where a bit of red spray snuck into the engine mount area. I'll hand paint over that with white when I get around to it, but not urgent. I have to say I really like the way this fin design looks in the rear, wrapped around the transitions, even if there were a bit of a pain to get fitted in there properly. Worth the effort.
 
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Man....your paint job looks so much better than mine does. Nice goin dood. And that trailing shroud fin rig looks pretty freekin awesome. Does this mean I'm a grandpa now?
 
Time to repair that fin mishap.

A bit of luck brought me an ideal solution. Mark had included a couple of scraps of white vinyl with my order, so I could see the difference between the wrap vinyl and the cutting vinyl.

So, I printed out the exact "4" that I used as the vinyl template, cut it out slightly on the large side, and taped it to the wrap vinyl.
ImageUploadedByRocketry Forum1498094541.749916.jpg

Then I Sharpied all around it, leaving a nice outline for me to cut out (I was making two, just to have a spare):
ImageUploadedByRocketry Forum1498094557.567759.jpg ImageUploadedByRocketry Forum1498094567.412421.jpg

I cut it just inside the Sharpie marks with a combination of Xacto #11 and scissors, and then cut out the middle piece by eye with the Xacto. The result: a couple of pretty decent hand-cut 4s.
ImageUploadedByRocketry Forum1498094575.125290.jpg

I was lucky they weren't anything more elaborate, or I might not have been able to hand-cut them.

I hand-painted the messed-up part of the fin with Testor's red. Because the surface got so roughed up, it still looked awful, but at least it was red.
ImageUploadedByRocketry Forum1498094589.680488.jpg

Then I applied the new vinyl 4, and...
ImageUploadedByRocketry Forum1498094600.369308.jpg

Frankly my biggest fear was that the vinyl wouldn't stick to the very rough surface underneath. It seemed to do OK though, and hopefully it'll be a little more sealed down after the coat of Future I just applied tonight.

Oh, in case anyone is wondering if there's any particular significance to the "4", the answer is no. I like the way it looks is all.

Also hooked up about 4' of shock cord and an 18" nylon chute, and now this baby is ready to launch in a few weeks. I have a couple each of D12-3s and D12-5s, will try the 3 first. Unfortunately I don't have any E15-4s, and the launch has no vendor in attendance, so I probably won't be able to fly one of those for a little while yet. I do have an E15-7 (use that one for my Solar Warrior, or maybe the Diamond Cutter), but there's no way I'm putting a 7 second delay in this rocket. I'll acquire some of the Es eventually and with luck will fly with them later this year.
 
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Hey! This just occurred to me. Didn't I send you an extra set of cuts? You should have a couple extra 4's taped up somewhere. Along with the extra set of windows I sent.
 
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