MAC BlackFly build thread

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You went to KSC and bring us a cell phone pic of 39A? :/


I can't wait to see one of these fly.
 
Thanks Michael!

I just got my nose cone AV bay from MAC in the mail yesterday so looking forward to your build.

This is going to take me forever since I'm ordering one piece at a time LOL!

I have some progress on my nosecone, which I will post sometime this weekend. You sound like me when it comes to my builds. I have never done a build thread for that very reason, I can turn a simple quick build into a marathon.

You went to KSC and bring us a cell phone pic of 39A? :/


I can't wait to see one of these fly.

lol I am not the photographer in the family. I also have a pic of a good size Tortoise cruising down the same road, just outside the fence of 39A. It made me wonder how many animals all of the launch activity kills each year.

Here is a pic of the dried grey with the grey/red edge knocked down using a sanding block and 600 wet. The line is very sharp and it was done to the eye to I suspect if I spun the rocket I would see some variations but up close it is very clean. The black will start inline with the fins, leaving a thin grey stripe.

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Time to lay down some masking. I decided to line the name and logo up with the center line of one of the fins, vs, in between two fins. I measured and marked the center line of the mask as well as the body. You can see the marks in the pic, these will sand off later when I give the rocket a wet 600 sanding just prior to applying the clear.



I peeled the backing off the masking, lined up the marks, laid it down and made sure the edges were tight against the body where the paint would be sprayed. Then I removed the top film and masked off the top and bottom for over spray. One thing that helps when laying down the film is the same method of laying down any decal film. Spray the back of the film with a light mist of water first, which allows you to move the sticker around before committing. One thing I noticed is that the "Y" is not centered, but the masking is. Visually this makes it look like the mask is misaligned at the bottom to the left, but it is not.

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For anyone who has not used masking the process is straight forward from this point, you simply spray then I like to remove the mask well before the paint cures, in this case this paint is dry within 15 min and you can handle it within an hour, so I waited the hour. I also sprayed the nosecone at the same time.



Removing the mask I like to pull it away on a 45 degree angle from the edge. As careful as you try, it is not uncommon (at least for me) for the mask to tear in tight places, such as between the letters. In my case I left a bit of masking in between the "K" and "C", then instead of using the point of a knife to pick it back up and or tweezers to grab it, I tried to do it by hand and slightly damaged the bottom edge of the "C", close to the left corner. This will be easy to mask off and repair once this is cured, prior to clear. The small bits of mask on the logo were removed by using the method mentioned above, corner of a utility knife to pick it up then tweezers to peel. Overall this masking film from Stickershock is very easy to work with and high quality.

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This evening I will mask the eyes in the black fly and spray the red then set aside for 1 week before I can do the black stripes and black fins. Had I the time to dedicate to this you could easily do all of this in a 24 hour period, but my schedule doesn't afford me with much consecutive time. I typically get 15 min here an hour there, but never hours.
 
Looking good.

I'm convinced if I had two hours to work on something I'd do 15 minutes of work and then sit around confused the rest of the time.
 
Looking good.

I'm convinced if I had two hours to work on something I'd do 15 minutes of work and then sit around confused the rest of the time.

Thanks.

And you're probably more accurate with the 2 hour thing, my ADD kicks in and I usually end up trying to juggle 30 things at once.

I took 20 min to lay down the red eyes of the black fly. Not quite as easy as it looks but not rocket science either. You cannot see the underlying image so aligning it took a few extra min. I simply drew the a vertical and horizontal center line on the mask, then aligned it with the center line I drew earlier on the rocket vertically, and horizontally I used part of the wings of the black fly as reference marks. The end result was pretty darn perfect, which is always a nice surprise as you peel back the mask. Obviously I masked off everything but the red square.



And whalla! a set of eyes looking back at me.

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Of course I had to pop the nosecone on just to see if it is starting to resemble my rendering, and I have to say it is really starting to look like what I envisioned.



As I mentioned earlier, unfortunately I cannot paint the black stripes and black fins at this stage due to missing my re-coat window, so it looks like I will be at it next weekend before finishing the paint. Throughout the week I will do a light and careful wet sand, just to knock down the edges between layers, and on Saturday night I will mask and spray the black, then Sunday I will lay down the clear. Once that is done I will let it sit for a bit to cure and harden, which is min 1 week, plus the matte clear when initially sprayed tends to lay down cloudy and take at least a few days to clear up.

I will also be working on the nosecone AV bay this week including catching up on posting some of the AV bay work already completed.
 
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Thanks.

And you're probably more accurate with the 2 hour thing, my ADD kicks in and I usually end up trying to juggle 30 things at once.

I took 20 min to lay down the red eyes of the black fly. Not quite as easy as it looks but not rocket science either. You cannot see the underlying image so aligning it took a few extra min. I simply drew the a vertical and horizontal center line on the mask, then aligned it with the center line I drew earlier on the rocket vertically, and horizontally I used part of the wings of the black fly as reference marks. The end result was pretty darn perfect, which is always a nice surprise as you peel back the mask. Obviously I masked off everything but the red square.



And whalla! a set of eyes looking back at me.

35256081054_c8663e0313_z.jpg


Of course I had to pop the nosecone on just to see if it is starting to resemble my rendering, and I have to say it is really starting to look like what I envisioned.



As I mentioned earlier, unfortunately I cannot paint the black stripes and black fins at this stage due to missing my re-coat window, so it looks like I will be at it next weekend before finishing the paint. Throughout the week I will do a light and careful wet sand, just to knock down the edges between layers, and on Saturday night I will mask and spray the black, then Sunday I will lay down the clear. Once that is done I will let it sit for a bit to cure and harden, which is min 1 week, plus the matte clear when initially sprayed tends to lay down cloudy and take at least a few days to clear up.

I will also be working on the nosecone AV bay this week including catching up on posting some of the AV bay work already completed.


Mike, there are rattle can paint products that don't have the long redcoat window associated with hardware store enamels. Duplicolor has a wide range of colors in their Perfect Match automotive series. It is a 1K acrylic (new term for lacquer). Color choice is wide and coverage is very good. It requires a clear coat. You can use theirs (requires some buffing) or a clear polyurethane rattle can clear will work. I have used it on a number of Mid Power projects. The MAC 3FNC I flew at URRF4 used this system.
 
Oh, BTW, It could not look any better regardless of the paint system used........
 
Mike, there are rattle can paint products that don't have the long redcoat window associated with hardware store enamels. Duplicolor has a wide range of colors in their Perfect Match automotive series. It is a 1K acrylic (new term for lacquer). Color choice is wide and coverage is very good. It requires a clear coat. You can use theirs (requires some buffing) or a clear polyurethane rattle can clear will work. I have used it on a number of Mid Power projects. The MAC 3FNC I flew at URRF4 used this system.

Oh, BTW, It could not look any better regardless of the paint system used........

Hey Joe, thanks and thanks. I hear you on the paint. I use Duplicolor all the time, as a matter of fact I just used the high heat red and blue on some AV bay caps the other night. I have also used their dreaded acrylic based enamel, the rocket in my avatar was painted using that, nice paint but man what a lot of work! I actually chose this paint for it's ease of use, to go along with my vision of this rocket in that it could be a simple quick build. Of course I had to complicate things with using masks instead of decals but I find it that much more rewarding when my rocket is all paint.

Speaking of that, I had a chance to work on it later this evening, so I masked it up, laid down the black, and while it was still very soft, actually too soft but my impatience got the better of me, I de-masked it very carefully. Thankfully I did it slow enough that I did not make mistake. Here are a couple of quick pics just of the paintwork I did this evening. Tomorrow I will post some more pics of the process and hopefully I will find some time to knock everything down and give it a once over with 600 grit than lay down the clear and set it aside for a week to cure.

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Here is a close up of the numbers, I had to flip the 6 on the end as it was supposed to be a 9, which I likely would never noticed if Rick didn't ask me about the meaning.

 
Well, I lost my re-coat window today for the clear, so now it will have to wait until next weekend. However I did get a chance to knock down the edges, sand off some pencil reference marks and give it a once over with 600 wet in preparation for my matte top coat. I am pretty happy with the results so far, so another week does not bother me in the least.

As I mentioned in my last post I said I would post some pics of the process of painting the fincan black. As most of you know in an ideal situation you lay the colours down from light to dark. In this case I opted to paint the red tailcone first, which was a choice I made simply due to it being easier to mask, however after that the colours did go down in the ideal order. This made painting the fincan as simple as masking off everything that wasn't going to be black. I started off masking the top and bottom line, using the now trimmed mask pieces as a reference. After that I just had to mask off my rail button posts and apply the mask. This was made easy by first tacking the top then aligning it between the fins and using a credit card to apply it from the middle out to the fin roots.

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Ensuring that the lines lined up from one fin to another was something that I had to continually check, however by using the top masking ring as my guide it pretty much aligned itself



One of the harder parts was flipping the number 6 at the end of my TRA number to a 9, which is what it was supposed to be. However it turned out so well that you cannot even tell.

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Today, once I gave everything a sand I set the nosecone on top to see it fully painted for the first time (minus the top coat), and compare it to my original vision. There are slight differences to my vision. A slightly lighter shade of grey, which I like due to the contrast, and I opted to put my BlackFly logo centered on one fin instead of between two fins, which then forced me to lay my numbers off to the side, again a nice happy change. Overall I am very happy with the results.



To-do is to finish off the AV bay sled, which will likely take me a couple of weeks as I have to order some stuff, then as I said, next week I will lay down the top coat and set it aside for a week then install the rail buttons and engine retainer, and finally install the shock cord, laundry and give it a final weigh and measure the CG.
 
I finished painting on the weekend and I am very happy with the results, that Krylon matte clear is a really nice finish. I will post some pics in a few days.

I need to backtrack a bit to go over what I have done for the AV bay so far. As per post 8 https://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?140664-MAC-BlackFly-build-thread&p=1697844#post1697844 I cut the nosecone end off just below the bottom, third ring, and dry fit the AV bay, which was pretty tight.



To adjust the fit I used one of the spindle sanding drums from my bench-top oscillating table sander to manually enlarge the hole.



Doing this by hand allowed me to adjust the fit so that when the AV bay is inserted into the nosecone coupler, it expands the coupler just enough that it is now the perfect fit in the BT.

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Using a flashlight to shine in the bottom of the dry-fit AV bay allowed me to clearly see where the AV bay CR would line up. I then used a pencil to transfer that location to the outside of the nosecone. Later I will use this reference mark as a guide of where to sand the inside of the nosecone and lay down the epoxy.



As I mentioned in an earlier post, I had a bit of creative fun with this AV bay and the sampling holes for the altimeter. Typically I like to match the number of AV bay sampling holes with the number of fins, but with 5 fins this seemed a bit excessive. One of the unique things about this AV bay design is that the CR seals the nosecone from the AV bay tube where you would want to drill the sampling holes. So I decided to cut three relatively large holes, spaced 120 degrees apart, in the 38mm phenolic tubing.



I felt that this inner AV bay tube, which will be fully exposed to atmospheric pressure changes through these large internal holes, would also create a bit of a buffer from any additional turbulence of having 5 holes, so what the heck I drilled 5 evenly spaced sampling holes.

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I then epoxied the CR into the nosecone.

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Once the CR was cured I dry fit the AV bay tube



Because I will be using a hanging charge for separation I will not be able to use the eye-hook that is included in the AV bay kit, so I needed another way to connect the harness to the nosecone. I had some 1/4 Kevlar from One Bad Hawk, which was just thin enough, barely, to slide in-between the nosecone and the AV bay coupler.

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Using my table saw and a guide to keep the coupler aligned at a right angle, I very carefully set the depth of my blade and made several passes to cut a groove for the Kevlar.

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I then mocked up the sub-assembly.



To make sure the sub-assembly did not add too much bulk, and further enlarge the nosecone coupler width, I dry fit the assembly with the nosecone and test fit the nosecone with the body tube to ensure it was still a good fit.

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Happy with the fit I epoxied the AV bay coupler onto the 38mm AV bay tube.

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Now that I had this part figured out I could move onto mocking up the sled to figure out component placement, as well as figure out a way to key the sled. Keying the sled was important for me because I will be using a magnet switch and they are a lot easier to use when the switch is always located in the same spot. I decided that I would use the sled and the tracker as a way to ensure alignment.



The idea is to slot the end cap of the AV bay tube to accept the sled just enough so that it could not rotate.



Because the tracker has to be positioned high on the sled, to the point where the antenna protrudes through the top end cap. I decided to use this to my advantage and eliminate the 50/50 sled positioning. Using some carbon paper to mark the spot on the end cap where the antenna would protrude through I drilled it out.



Once everything was marked, cut, and sanded, I did a final assembly and epoxied it up. The sled slides into the AV bay tube easily and there no excessive play in any direction.

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This is the current stage of the AV bay. The final bit is to drill out the existing hole in the AV bay screw on cap, to allow for sealing the hanging charge, as well as assemble the sled. I hope to complete this by the weekend and if so I will post some final pics of the build process. If the weather permits I may have an opportunity to have a maiden launch this weekend as well. If so I will post pics and results.
 
And so the Black Fly actually flies, lol.

As I said to Mike, you can model these rocket designs in RS and OR but until you push the button you are always wondering.

Well I can tell you that it flies well on a CTI G80 Skid to 1400', and it flies even better on a CTI G106 to 2200' lol. Nice straight flights, no wobble at burnout. I can't wait until my AV bay is done and push it even further, but I wanted the first couple of flight to be simple pop and drop. I did use the JLCR to hold the main until 300' which was perfect. I also had a chance to size my chute, and a 24" Fruity Chute Classic Elliptical was what I ended up using.

Here she is all complete, minus AV bay, sitting on the pad just before her maiden flight on the G80.

 
Looks fantastic, Mike!!! All matte? I still have to get mine in the air. MWP at the latest.
 
Looks fantastic, Mike!!! All matte? I still have to get mine in the air. MWP at the latest.

Thanks Eric, it was a fun build.

Yes it is all matte. That Krylon matte clear is so easy to work with and the finish, once cured, is pretty durable. I also used it when I refinished my Aerotech Arreaux payload tube in the spring, and it took a while to fully cure but it has taken a beating. Most definitely recommend it to anyone looking for that matte look.

I was going to PM you about yours, I figured you would have at least a few launches under your belt by now. I highly recommend the CTI G106 Skid, great flight. Because my AV bay is not complete I used a simple pop and drop, 11 second delay, which was bang on and the JLCR set to 300...it was picture perfect. I will be popping the CTI G250 Vmax in next.

Hopefully I will find sometime in the next couple of weeks to finish my AV bay and if so I will post some pics.
 
Thanks Eric, it was a fun build.

Yes it is all matte. That Krylon matte clear is so easy to work with and the finish, once cured, is pretty durable. I also used it when I refinished my Aerotech Arreaux payload tube in the spring, and it took a while to fully cure but it has taken a beating. Most definitely recommend it to anyone looking for that matte look.

I was going to PM you about yours, I figured you would have at least a few launches under your belt by now. I highly recommend the CTI G106 Skid, great flight. Because my AV bay is not complete I used a simple pop and drop, 11 second delay, which was bang on and the JLCR set to 300...it was picture perfect. I will be popping the CTI G250 Vmax in next.

Hopefully I will find sometime in the next couple of weeks to finish my AV bay and if so I will post some pics.
I'm going without an av-bay, just JLCR and tracker. Yeah, with school starting, I'm slow on Rocketry for awhile.
Great build, and the g106 sounds like a good first flight!
 
Awesome Mike!
I am still fumbling along with mine. My first attempt at epoxy fillets came out a little “heavy handed” which is requiring a LOT of sanding!

I am almost to the point that I am happy with it however and have started on the nosecone assembly and have the same nosecone AV bay from MAC. Before epoxying the AV Bay/Nosecone together, I was wondering about adding nose weight like you did or if I should even worry about it? I am not L1 certified so I will predominantly be flying mine on mid power F-50 through G-80 motors for now and would like the option to use bigger motors at a later date. It appears it would be difficult if not impossible to add weight in the future once it is all glued together?

Also, what size holes did you drill for the static ports/sampling holes in the nose cone? Looks like they are smaller than 1/8” but it is hard to tell from the picture. Are the holes in the AV bay tube 1/2”?

AV_Bay_Ports.jpg

Thanks again for all your help and it's great to know she WILL fly one day LOL!
 
Awesome Mike!
I am still fumbling along with mine. My first attempt at epoxy fillets came out a little “heavy handed” which is requiring a LOT of sanding!

I am almost to the point that I am happy with it however and have started on the nosecone assembly and have the same nosecone AV bay from MAC. Before epoxying the AV Bay/Nosecone together, I was wondering about adding nose weight like you did or if I should even worry about it? I am not L1 certified so I will predominantly be flying mine on mid power F-50 through G-80 motors for now and would like the option to use bigger motors at a later date. It appears it would be difficult if not impossible to add weight in the future once it is all glued together?

Also, what size holes did you drill for the static ports/sampling holes in the nose cone? Looks like they are smaller than 1/8” but it is hard to tell from the picture. Are the holes in the AV bay tube 1/2”?

View attachment 325813

Thanks again for all your help and it's great to know she WILL fly one day LOL!

Hi Deke,

One trick I picked up for doing fillets, is to mask and peel as soon as the epoxy stops running. I usually leave the unused epoxy and just poke it until it is viscous enough that I can remove the masking tape but not hard enough that it leaves edges; you want the edges soft enough to flow back down when you pull the tape. If you used the carbon paper trick and a uniform tool to mark them then the excess epoxy should be minimal. Also the more fillet material you add to the fins area, shifts the CG on the already aft heavy design, which has to be offset with nosecone weight. So keep them small and light.

As for nosecone weight this design needs it for stability, it is the only way I was able to keep the length down, otherwise the rocket would have had to be proportionately much longer. In an ideal world you would want to keep the nose weight down, not so much for performance but for recovery as a heavy nosecone tends to drag the rest of the falling body down with it and it can end up being in a line when the main deploys and your trailing body can drop right through your main. I am not sure what motors you are planning on flying, so my recommendation would be to take some measurements in it's current state of construction, manually adjust your sims accordingly and see how the numbers work. Ideally you want a min of 1 cal for the heaviest motor config you plan on flying and everything smaller will just give you more margin. With epoxy and lead I added 100g, I would guess that you are going to need a min of 50g, but you need to calculate this.

I believe the 5 altimeter sampling holes I drilled were 1/16", and the three lager internal holes I drilled in the AV bay 38mm tube were at least 1/2", possibly 5/8". I would have to measure them. I added the large internal holes because the top CR in the AV bay kit seals the tube inside the nosecone so you need to drill something to equalize it. I also wanted to make them large enough that they wouldn't cause a pressure differential between the tube and the nosecone wall. And finally I off-set them to help negate any potential cross turbulence within the AV bay that could cause pressure issues affecting the altimeter.

Don't forget to post some pics of your progress or at least your results.
 
Thanks Mike!
I did use the carbon paper trick you mentioned and even drove 30 miles one way to pick up the paint spreader/spatula doo-dad you posted a picture of. I believe my problem was that this being the first time I did this, I ran my tape lines OVER the top of the carbon paper lines instead of next to them. When I pulled the tape off it peeled up the edge of the fillet leaving a very pronounced line. I'm getting better though, I've been practicing on the $15 dollar Estes PSII clearance bundle rockets!

I will get some pictures tonight and post tomorrow. I also downloaded Open Rocket but haven't had a chance to do more than just look around. That will probably have to wait for the weekend.
 
Thanks Mike!
I did use the carbon paper trick you mentioned and even drove 30 miles one way to pick up the paint spreader/spatula doo-dad you posted a picture of. I believe my problem was that this being the first time I did this, I ran my tape lines OVER the top of the carbon paper lines instead of next to them. When I pulled the tape off it peeled up the edge of the fillet leaving a very pronounced line. I'm getting better though, I've been practicing on the $15 dollar Estes PSII clearance bundle rockets!

I will get some pictures tonight and post tomorrow. I also downloaded Open Rocket but haven't had a chance to do more than just look around. That will probably have to wait for the weekend.

lol man did you ever follow my build thread. You can really use anything with a consistent round edge. I have, and still do, use dowels, which you can pick up at most hardware stores, Popsicle sticks, I have also used spoons, which really gets my wife mad, as well as my finger. The finger method is surprisingly not bad, but for consistent precision with consistent predictable sanding, you can't beat using something with a firm radius. Well at least you have learned a lesson about taping. You want the tape right up against the line but on the outside part of the line, so you can clearly see it. This results in minimal sanding.
 
OK, here she is. First pic showing tail cone, motor retainer, and the fillet lines I mentioned before too much sanding was done...
B4_Sanding.jpg

This is the current state as of last night. Talk about copying your build, you can even see some of the pink body filler that I also tried for the first time (and learned I wasn't very good at that either!). I suspect that I still have several hours of sanding left but that is going to have to wait until Sat-Sun mornings when it's not 100 degrees outside.
Fillets.jpg

Nose cone CR epoxied in place & dry fit nosecone AV bay. Everything fits together perfectly, when you pull the dry fitted parts apart it sounds like uncorking a bottle of wine!
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Assembled_NC.jpg

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This has been an absolute joy to build, thank you Mike for all your assistance!
 
This has been an absolute joy to build, thank you Mike for all your assistance!

Hey no problem I hope you enjoy flying her as much as the build.

As you do more fillets you will develop and refine your own technique to get good results and minimize the sanding. Selecting the right grit and your technique have a lot to do with minimizing cutting in. I use a sanding block, a lot, just for this purpose, which also has it's downfalls. I also use a set of contoured sanding grips that I picked up from Lee Valley, and they not only help with good results, but they also with hand cramping. Here is a link to the full set, which is what I have and I have pretty much used every one of the convex and angled blocks, and some of the concave https://www.leevalley.com/us/wood/page.aspx?p=20183&cat=1,42500

I am looking forward to seeing your paint and theme choices.
 
I did get a LOT of sanding done last weekend and I am pretty happy with the results...
BF_Fins_082417.jpg

Next up is 400/600 grit wet sanding and maybe a topcoat this weekend!
 
Just a quick update, I flew my BlackFly on an AT G79White roughly to 1500 AGL. The flight was stable enough with a very minor wiggle but respectable, I will most definitely keep some of those motors in my inventory. Still my fav motor is the G106 for this rocket but I still have two G250 Vmax motors to try.

One other thing that I would consider adjusting is the length of the tailcone. I now have three flights and after each flight there is a bit of blistering on the end of the tailcone. I think if the tailcones was a bit shorter it would help mitigate or even eliminate this. For anyone just starting the build I would sand off .25" and take it from there. For me I am going to sand the paint off the end then repaint just that area with some high temp paint. I am not sure if this will resolve or mitigate it for me as I believe it is caused by the underlying PLA off-gassing due to the heat. However to shorten the length once built with the retainer on, is possible but it would be a challenge for me.

If anyone tries to mitigate this on their BlackFly, please let me know what you try.
 
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Interesting. I have a equivalent number of flights on my Radial Flyer, which has the same tailcone. I don't have any issues there, just a little carbon. I wonder if there is some influence in how far back the motor tube/retainer extends out of the cone, though yours doesn't look to be too different...
 
Interesting. I have a equivalent number of flights on my Radial Flyer, which has the same tailcone. I don't have any issues there, just a little carbon. I wonder if there is some influence in how far back the motor tube/retainer extends out of the cone, though yours doesn't look to be too different...

Hey Rick,

My take is that the base drag creates a low pressure cell which allows an exhaust wake to form, the same thing I observe on any "real" large rocket launch. That being said I have no idea on how much if at all the rocket design contributes to the problem, but my gut tells me it does. To what degree that is where I am out of my depth.
 
One other thing that I would consider adjusting is the length of the tailcone. I now have three flights and after each flight there is a bit of blistering on the end of the tailcone. I think if the tailcones was a bit shorter it would help mitigate or even eliminate this. For anyone just starting the build I would sand off .25" and take it from there. For me I am going to sand the paint off the end then repaint just that area with some high temp paint. I am not sure if this will resolve or mitigate it for me as I believe it is caused by the underlying PLA off-gassing due to the heat. However to shorten the length once built with the retainer on, is possible but it would be a challenge for me.

If anyone tries to mitigate this on their BlackFly, please let me know what you try.

Surprise! It's hollow. :)

Not a big deal, I took a little off the length and then filled the webbed area with rocketpoxy.


IMG_2438.jpg
 
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