tibbe
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- Joined
- Jun 11, 2017
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So I'm just about through my very first build and although I wasn't disciplined enough to take pictures and make a full build thread, I thought I'd share a few things I learned:
Painting is a pain and doesn't work when it's too cold outside
Of all the steps painting was the most annoying. So annoying that I might just skip painting my future rockets. I have no garage/workshop so I had to use my (large) balcony. It didn't work very well.
I made a paint booth out of a tall cardboard box to protect my balcony and create a wind shelter. It did prevent paint from getting where I didn't intend it to go but the wind tended to create air vortexes inside the box. Possibly because I live on the corner of the building on the 5th floor and it's extra windy up here.
In addition, it was too cold and humid (0C/32F, 92% humidity). The instructions on the spray can were telling the truth, painting at those temperatures doesn't work well (even using some tricks for cold-weather painting I read about here). In addition, the wind made it feel like the paint spent all the time blowing around my rocket instead of sticking to it. After one coat of primer and two coats of paint the rocket looks barely painted (e.g. you can see the spiral groves in the tube and the pencil marks I drew on it).
Don't over-sand your centering rings
Initially my LOC IV centering rings wouldn't quite fit in the tube (and fitting them was made harder by the tube having been a tiny bit squashed in transport), so I sanded them. Turns out that I sanded the rear ring a bit too much, so much that there was a clear gap between the ring and the body tube which led to epoxy leaking into the body tube when making a fillet. Not a big deal but a bit annoying.
Make sure your fins are really flush with the body tube
One of my fins wasn't 100% flush with the body tube (presumably because the fin tab that touches the motor mount was slightly too long). Again this caused some epoxy leakage when making fillets.
Don't leave your rocket standing outside on a table
It blew over and dented one of the fins.
Things that went well
I followed John Coker's LOC IV guide (https://www.jcrocket.com/loc-iv.shtml) and I really like the improvements he made to the rocket, such as replacing the shock cord and its attachment and using interior fillets for the fins.
Painting is a pain and doesn't work when it's too cold outside
Of all the steps painting was the most annoying. So annoying that I might just skip painting my future rockets. I have no garage/workshop so I had to use my (large) balcony. It didn't work very well.
I made a paint booth out of a tall cardboard box to protect my balcony and create a wind shelter. It did prevent paint from getting where I didn't intend it to go but the wind tended to create air vortexes inside the box. Possibly because I live on the corner of the building on the 5th floor and it's extra windy up here.
In addition, it was too cold and humid (0C/32F, 92% humidity). The instructions on the spray can were telling the truth, painting at those temperatures doesn't work well (even using some tricks for cold-weather painting I read about here). In addition, the wind made it feel like the paint spent all the time blowing around my rocket instead of sticking to it. After one coat of primer and two coats of paint the rocket looks barely painted (e.g. you can see the spiral groves in the tube and the pencil marks I drew on it).
Don't over-sand your centering rings
Initially my LOC IV centering rings wouldn't quite fit in the tube (and fitting them was made harder by the tube having been a tiny bit squashed in transport), so I sanded them. Turns out that I sanded the rear ring a bit too much, so much that there was a clear gap between the ring and the body tube which led to epoxy leaking into the body tube when making a fillet. Not a big deal but a bit annoying.
Make sure your fins are really flush with the body tube
One of my fins wasn't 100% flush with the body tube (presumably because the fin tab that touches the motor mount was slightly too long). Again this caused some epoxy leakage when making fillets.
Don't leave your rocket standing outside on a table
It blew over and dented one of the fins.
Things that went well
I followed John Coker's LOC IV guide (https://www.jcrocket.com/loc-iv.shtml) and I really like the improvements he made to the rocket, such as replacing the shock cord and its attachment and using interior fillets for the fins.