Long time no post. been traveling for work and weddings, building a QCC explorer, and preparing to transfer to a new program with my company.
There has been a little progress on the Fissile Missile (PSII Argent). Someone sold me a few 2.5" PSII couplers and left a bulkhead with an eyebolt epoxied in one of them.....
I was quite baffled as to how to address the issue and in my frustration ended up gluing another bulkhead on the back end and drilling a bunch of holes in it.
Likely got the idea from some of Qqake2's threads. I like how it turned out and am debating whether I want to adapt one into my L2 design, but I'd have to make an extra cut on the airframe, and I'm hesitant to do that.
As per usual with these, I put both lugs and buttons on to maximize flight options.
Fins are foiled as best I can by eye on the belt sander, and the TBII fillets are drying. Next comes a few rounds of TB Q&T to increase the radius.
There's also some pretty solid TBII coverage of the seams and joints inside since I left the rear ring off for the time being.
Here's a topic of thought: HPR and wood glue.
At Southern Thunder, Vertigo II flew on a G118 with an initial Thr/Wt of ~18 and reaching ~.6 M. The only epoxy was on the retainer, the nose weight ring, and the sled.
This isn't an extreme flight, but its not bad for a PSII rocket (with the thinner Estes MPR tubes). However, my club friends were incredibly ........dubious of its chances with the G118.
I'm happy to have proved them wrong B) . At that same flight, I heard someone telling a college flier "Hi power Needs to be built with Epoxy!"
Counter to their doubts and that flier's opinion, I've heard several accounts on the forum of woodglue being used successfully on HPR models (not crazy flights that is). The argument for this position is that wood glue is specifically formulated for bonding .....wood! Wood (and paper/cardboard) are natural composites and respond well to the aliphatic(?) resins of the woodglue leading fliers to use it as a lighter weight alternative to epoxy on those rockets (that aren't doing super flights. which they'll probably fiberglass reinforce and require epoxy anyway).
What does the reader think: How far would yo take wood glue?
Since my L2 airframe is LOC tube and plywood fins and intended to be a show flyer that doesn't break records, I've been leaning towards using wood glues on whatever areas aren't plastic/metal (tubes/fins/couplers, etc.....). How much pushback should I expect from the the HPR=Epoxy crowd?