HandsomeRob
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jul 2, 2017
- Messages
- 69
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Build threads are always fun and with a new kit arriving in the mail yesterday, I figured I'd throw my own on the pile!
I'll be doing a slightly modified Semroc Magnum Hornet I grabbed from Apogee. I've gotta say, maybe ever so slightly more expensive, but blown away by their level of service. The site is great, the info is great, their shipping time is great, they're great and worth the extra coin. Anyway.... I posted a thread a while back with some questions about adding a payload bay with ebay to this rocket and as the build costs went up, my desire to build it went down. I've got a Star Orbiter I want to do bad bad things with but I really wanted to build a stepping-stone rocket first. Something to bridge the gap between building an Estes kit largely as instructed and adding all kinds of stuff like composite reload motors, dual deploy, gps trackers, etc. So, I scaled back a bit and arrived at something that is still going to push my building skills and be fun to fly, while being (somewhat) reasonably priced and not break my heart if I send it up and it never comes back. On with the show:
Heh, please excuse the dirty carpet, this room is generally used for storage. Here we have everything out of the box. The rocket kit, a Perfectflite Firefly altimeter, Dinochutes pouch for said altimeter since it will not be living in a payload bay Apogee ejection baffle, some 56" streamers since I'm certain this thing will float off into oblivion if I use a 'cute, Estes engine retainers because they were less expensive, and a package of plastic nosecones since I hate balsa cones. My apologies to balsa nose cone purists.
The contents of the rocket kit. I'm very impressed with the care taken to package each component set individually. It seems a bit wasteful at first but I'll make good use of those resealable small parts baggies over time. The quality of the non-balsa parts seems pretty top notch, while the balsa bits do leave a bit to be desired. The nosecone isn't too bad, just quite rough, but I wouldn't really expect it to be a finished piece.
Upon inspection of the fins, I came across this. I understand these things happen but with the way the fins are packaged (individually in their own parts bag, not semi-cut on a big sheet of balsa) I kinda feel like someone should have caught this and scrapped it for a different fin. That said, I do believe this fin is easily repairable and, overall, a very small gripe. I was planning on trying a different method of sealing the fins with this build, but it looks like I'll be breaking out the wood filler after all. Funny enough, I hate the wood filler I have because it's designed for really big holes, not light top coats, and it's actually going to work very will for fixing this fin. So it all works out in the end!
As I said, I'm not a fan of balsa nose cones. Those that are, more power to ya! Additionally, I wanted the biggest cone I could put on this rocket and the conical Estes cone seemed to fit the bill, so into the cart it went. Also, it kinda looks like a stinger, and this is a Hornet, sooooo...... While I was waiting for the rocket to arrive, I cobbled together the thing as best I could on OpenRocket and, somewhat disappointingly, it sims to much higher altitudes on the olgive shaped cone. This led me to the idea that I may just put a barrel swivel (love these things) at the end of the shock cord and give myself the ability to just clip on different shaped nose cones when I want to switch it up. It would also be fun to use the altimeter to compare heights and speeds to what the simulations say. I do wish that this package came with 4 different shaped cones though. It shows 4 different ones on the package, so I know at one point it did. I knew by the product description that I was getting 2 cones of 2 different styles, so I don't feel misled in anyway, I got what I wanted. Just a thought.
And, finally, the Apogee ejection baffle. I really like the idea of the rocket containing everything needed for flight permanently within itself, so an ejection baffle is very appealing over wadding. This will be my first time using one, so I hope it works. There's not a lot here but, again, just very high quality parts. The wood is nice and thick and durable, the tube coupler fits nice and snug inside the body tube. I'm very happy with this add-on.
That's all I've got for now. Hope to start actually building things in the next day or 2.
I'll be doing a slightly modified Semroc Magnum Hornet I grabbed from Apogee. I've gotta say, maybe ever so slightly more expensive, but blown away by their level of service. The site is great, the info is great, their shipping time is great, they're great and worth the extra coin. Anyway.... I posted a thread a while back with some questions about adding a payload bay with ebay to this rocket and as the build costs went up, my desire to build it went down. I've got a Star Orbiter I want to do bad bad things with but I really wanted to build a stepping-stone rocket first. Something to bridge the gap between building an Estes kit largely as instructed and adding all kinds of stuff like composite reload motors, dual deploy, gps trackers, etc. So, I scaled back a bit and arrived at something that is still going to push my building skills and be fun to fly, while being (somewhat) reasonably priced and not break my heart if I send it up and it never comes back. On with the show:
Heh, please excuse the dirty carpet, this room is generally used for storage. Here we have everything out of the box. The rocket kit, a Perfectflite Firefly altimeter, Dinochutes pouch for said altimeter since it will not be living in a payload bay Apogee ejection baffle, some 56" streamers since I'm certain this thing will float off into oblivion if I use a 'cute, Estes engine retainers because they were less expensive, and a package of plastic nosecones since I hate balsa cones. My apologies to balsa nose cone purists.
The contents of the rocket kit. I'm very impressed with the care taken to package each component set individually. It seems a bit wasteful at first but I'll make good use of those resealable small parts baggies over time. The quality of the non-balsa parts seems pretty top notch, while the balsa bits do leave a bit to be desired. The nosecone isn't too bad, just quite rough, but I wouldn't really expect it to be a finished piece.
Upon inspection of the fins, I came across this. I understand these things happen but with the way the fins are packaged (individually in their own parts bag, not semi-cut on a big sheet of balsa) I kinda feel like someone should have caught this and scrapped it for a different fin. That said, I do believe this fin is easily repairable and, overall, a very small gripe. I was planning on trying a different method of sealing the fins with this build, but it looks like I'll be breaking out the wood filler after all. Funny enough, I hate the wood filler I have because it's designed for really big holes, not light top coats, and it's actually going to work very will for fixing this fin. So it all works out in the end!
As I said, I'm not a fan of balsa nose cones. Those that are, more power to ya! Additionally, I wanted the biggest cone I could put on this rocket and the conical Estes cone seemed to fit the bill, so into the cart it went. Also, it kinda looks like a stinger, and this is a Hornet, sooooo...... While I was waiting for the rocket to arrive, I cobbled together the thing as best I could on OpenRocket and, somewhat disappointingly, it sims to much higher altitudes on the olgive shaped cone. This led me to the idea that I may just put a barrel swivel (love these things) at the end of the shock cord and give myself the ability to just clip on different shaped nose cones when I want to switch it up. It would also be fun to use the altimeter to compare heights and speeds to what the simulations say. I do wish that this package came with 4 different shaped cones though. It shows 4 different ones on the package, so I know at one point it did. I knew by the product description that I was getting 2 cones of 2 different styles, so I don't feel misled in anyway, I got what I wanted. Just a thought.
And, finally, the Apogee ejection baffle. I really like the idea of the rocket containing everything needed for flight permanently within itself, so an ejection baffle is very appealing over wadding. This will be my first time using one, so I hope it works. There's not a lot here but, again, just very high quality parts. The wood is nice and thick and durable, the tube coupler fits nice and snug inside the body tube. I'm very happy with this add-on.
That's all I've got for now. Hope to start actually building things in the next day or 2.