Weekend At The Office ACME Spitfire Build

TangoJuliet said:

I'm actually thinking about using some Alclad II on it, but I haven't made a decision yet on exactly what I'm going to use to get the effect I want.

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I have never used Alclad II products so I will be very interested to see any techniques that you use. In fact an Alclad tutorial would be interesting to me (I have see several on line and it looks like good stuff). I am much more familiar with Metalizer from Testors (old-tech, I know).

BTW - I've brought the Nike Smoke out of the dungeon and am planning on Metalizing the fin can. Well see how it comes out.

I've got some work to do before I get to that point... Fill the balsa fins, then primer the entire rocket, then shoot Gloss Black as a base for Chrome, then I'll shoot Clear Blue Alclad II on the fins and Clear Red Alclad II on the Nose Cone. The BT will get a Pearl White coat. All this is pretty ambitious. I've only shot Alclad once, and that was 11 years ago!

I was looking at a how-to-alclad tutorial for making scale motorcycle pipes which look "hot", thanks for reminding me I wanted to do a fincan that way.

TangoJuliet said:

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Again, not difficult to fix, but it would have been easier to do before being assembled.

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This happened to me too, in my Beer Can build.

In the link you can see the nose cone fitting too high, and the next entry I cut the top off the tube. I'm guessing you did the same thing.

Yeah, I did yesterday. The fit is much better now. I had to trim down the toothpick also, like I thought I would. I shot primer on it all last evening. Today I'll get some more work done on it, my MR, and my QCC Explorer now that I'm off from work. Tomorrow I'm going to drive to the www.sears572.com/ launch, so no modeling will get done.

Here it is with primer after an initial sanding. It's too cold and windy outside this afternoon to shoot the gloss black. I noticed that I also haven't glued on the launch lugs, so I need to do that yet.

Looks pretty clean from here. What sort of clamp is that on the mat, I haven't seen that style before?

It's a long nose clamp I bought on Amazon I thought, but I can't find it now. It's about a 6" throat. I thought it might come in handy sometime when building R/C airplanes. This time I used it to hold the nose cone from the eyelet while I sprayed the primer on it.

jflis said:

Hhmmmm, I will look into that measurement for the toothpick as well as the "bt-50 too long" problem there... will get that fixed! Thanks for brining that to my attention.

As for the inspiration, yep, the story about my son and the Larson toon is correct

Good stuff!

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Have you told that story to Gary Larson? Send him pics of your rocket...I'm sure he would be amused.

Andrews McMeel Publishing
1130 Walnut Street
Kansas City, MO 64106-2109
Tel: (816) 581-7500

E-mail: [email protected]
Web: https://www.andrewsmcmeel.com

I would be highly interested in the measurements of this thing. I can't even guess what kind of CP results I could would get if I ran it through SolidWorks CFD.

K'Tesh said:

What about Trim Monokote? Would that work, or add too much weight to it?

Wait... I'm sure that the steampunked versions would weigh more (or have more drag) than the Monokote would.

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Yeah this isn't your typical low-drag high-performance rocket. Trim Monokote would be just fine.

The Gloss Black base coat has been applied and sometime today I'll mask off the BT from the fins and then I'll spray the Alclad II Chrome on the fins and nose cone.

I don't use Alclad very often due to the strong fumes and the lack of adequate ventilation where my airbrush station is located. I usually use Acrylic paints in the airbrush and anything else is done outside with rattle cans. But I really like how the Alclad Chrome looks! I'm not so impressed with my poor effort to fill the grain of the balsa wood. 😞



I hope to spray the Clear Blue and Clear Red tomorrow. I'm really hoping it turns out the way I envision it. This is a bit of an experiment for me.

TangoJuliet said:

... But I really like how the Alclad Chrome looks! I'm not so impressed with my poor effort to fill the grain of the balsa wood. ��
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Not so bad, of course you used THE color that seems to magnify surface characteristics the most. The fin stock in that kit looks to have some deep grain as well. Probably just a little more time sanding next time. It'll look great on the pad just before you light the candle.

samb said:

The fin stock in that kit looks to have some deep grain as well. Probably just a little more time sanding next time. It'll look great on the pad just before you light the candle.

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I'm not sure what I did different this time. I've decided I don't really like the CWF for filling balsa grain and I've been using AeroGloss Balsa Filler with much better results. Luckily my local HobbyTown USA has a pretty decent supply. Typically I apply two coats and that's enough. These don't even look like they got one good coat! Oh well, it still kind of works with the theme of this rocket.

Today I'll do the clear colors.

The grain adds to the "cobbled together" aesthetic.

I notice this has expanded much further than a "weekend at the office" too

Nytrunner said:

The grain adds to the "cobbled together" aesthetic.

I notice this has expanded much further than a "weekend at the office" too

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Exactly my thoughts. :wink:

Well, the assembly starts at the office because it's something I can do without too many tools/glues/solvents. The finishing takes place at home. The reason they drag out is because I work out of state for 7 days, then I'm home for 7 days. My 7 days off are, to a degree, busier than my days at work. And if the weather isn't right, then painting gets delayed. Which, as you probably know, we have a lot of high humidity days that wreak havoc with spray painting.

Tuesday got too busy for me to get the color coats on, and I had to travel back to work on Wednesday, so this is on hold again until next Thursday. Sorry. :sad:

Looking good . Love an ACME build thread!

I haven't gotten as much rocket related work done so far this week as I'd hoped to. I've been taking care of some household related projects first, and now I think I might be getting sick, but I did manage to spray my transparent color coats this morning. It's a learning process and I missed reading the recommendation for a special clear coat between the Chrome and the transparent colors. At any rate, the Red turned out pretty well on the NC, but for some reason the Blue came out uneven in it's coverage. You can see it's somewhat splotchy. Oh well... Live and learn. All that's left to do is spray the BT. I'm looking for a Pearl White. I was hoping Testor's made one, but so far I haven't found it. I may have to go to an Auto Parts store to find a suitable paint.

Looks like my fins when I used CWF, that's why I stick with Aerogloss. My local hobby stores don't have any more and Midwest stopped making. Don't fear I found a replacement as you can see in my Baby Bertha build.

Well, it's done. Not one of my best efforts, but I think it matches the original concept pretty well. This weekends weather forecast isn't looking great so the first flight probably won't happen for a couple more weeks. Anyhoo, here it is:

Thumbs up from here!

That's a nice shiny lookin stovepipe

Nice job Tango. Looking good.

Excellent! Can't wait to hear a flight report

That is awesome!!!

It looks terrific

Wow! Looks amazing!

On a side note, are those Mercury Redstone fins in the background?

Incongruent said:

Wow! Looks amazing!

On a side note, are those Mercury Redstone fins in the background?

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On Tango's behalf I can probably say "yes" without even looking, because he's almost got one of every Estes kit by now I think.

Anyway, they must be, because you can also see the MR tower assembly right nearby.