rharshberger
Well-Known Member
This is yet another one of my modded kit builds. This kit is intended to fly on most 24mm composite loads hence no motor block and the addition of an Estes 24mm motor retainer, will probably handle most all AT and most CTI 24mm pretty well with the exception of some of the hard hitting F's and G's (think Vmax's). Recovery will be via a thin mill nylon semi-hemispherical chute, JLCR and nomex. The nose cone will have the base removed to add noseweight and move the chute up HED style. According to sims the about 2ozs of noseweight will allow me to fly even the longest CTI 24mm with just over 1 caliber of stability margin.
Pic 1: Tailcone cleaned up and ready for assembly, fins match sanded and papered (papered with self adhesive label paper) with edges CA'd, parts weighed. Papering fins added about 8-10g to the total fin weight.
Pic 2: Small centering ring tacked with CA to get position of Estes motor retainer right.
Pic 3: MMT, small CR and fins all assembled at this point with Loctite Plastic Epoxy (for paper to plastic and wood to plastic joints) and Titebond II (fins to mmt). At one point a large CR was taped into the correct position on top the tail cone to align the motor tube properly.
Pic 4: Internal shot of fincan, one of the nice things about V2 fins is its easy to get them on straight using aluminum angles across the trailing edges and clamps, the fin roots were bonded to the mmt using the double butter method. The large CR's were left off until the internal fillets had been done with Loctite Plastic epoxy.
Pic 5: Large CR's added, under the lower one is a piece of BT50 split similar to the one between the CR's, it may or may not add any additional strength but I do it anyways.
Pic 6: External fin fillets done with BSI 20min epoxy mixed with Cabosil and Phenolic Micro-balloons, total addtional weight for the external and internal epoxy fillets was about 3-4grams or so (6 grams of epoxy including JB Weld on motor retainer). Radius on the fillets is about 1/8", they look kind of ugly here but the fillets are actually pretty smooth, the smearing is from an alcohol soaked fingertip which grinds the red epoxy into the paper staining it.
Pic 7: block added for lower rail-button.
Pic 8: Airframe attached to fin can using both TBII (upper CR) and Loctite Plastic Epoxy (lower CR and tailcone shoulder). Airframe is wrapped with self adhesive label paper and the seam CA'd and sanded smooth, no spirals to fill on this baby!
Pic 9: internal TBII fillets (still wet) around the upper Centering Ring ID and OD.
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Pic 1: Tailcone cleaned up and ready for assembly, fins match sanded and papered (papered with self adhesive label paper) with edges CA'd, parts weighed. Papering fins added about 8-10g to the total fin weight.
Pic 2: Small centering ring tacked with CA to get position of Estes motor retainer right.
Pic 3: MMT, small CR and fins all assembled at this point with Loctite Plastic Epoxy (for paper to plastic and wood to plastic joints) and Titebond II (fins to mmt). At one point a large CR was taped into the correct position on top the tail cone to align the motor tube properly.
Pic 4: Internal shot of fincan, one of the nice things about V2 fins is its easy to get them on straight using aluminum angles across the trailing edges and clamps, the fin roots were bonded to the mmt using the double butter method. The large CR's were left off until the internal fillets had been done with Loctite Plastic epoxy.
Pic 5: Large CR's added, under the lower one is a piece of BT50 split similar to the one between the CR's, it may or may not add any additional strength but I do it anyways.
Pic 6: External fin fillets done with BSI 20min epoxy mixed with Cabosil and Phenolic Micro-balloons, total addtional weight for the external and internal epoxy fillets was about 3-4grams or so (6 grams of epoxy including JB Weld on motor retainer). Radius on the fillets is about 1/8", they look kind of ugly here but the fillets are actually pretty smooth, the smearing is from an alcohol soaked fingertip which grinds the red epoxy into the paper staining it.
Pic 7: block added for lower rail-button.
Pic 8: Airframe attached to fin can using both TBII (upper CR) and Loctite Plastic Epoxy (lower CR and tailcone shoulder). Airframe is wrapped with self adhesive label paper and the seam CA'd and sanded smooth, no spirals to fill on this baby!
Pic 9: internal TBII fillets (still wet) around the upper Centering Ring ID and OD.
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