I did a few years ago, here was my experience, not sure if it is better now:
I got the nose cone last night, and I wanted to give a little story, a little funny, a little sad, sort of how my hobbies go from time to time, Sort of like in Jurrasic Park, it's all great till the running and the screaming.....
So, the cone looked pretty good, the gel coat was mat finished, not shiny and had some surface imperfections I had to sand out, not terrible though. It doesn't have a true three angles, just a main cone angle, and then the nose angle, but for $36 for a fiberglass 19" cone, I could live with it.
Problem was the shoulder was too tight on my loc 3.9" tubes. So, here we go, I thought.
Sanding, and sanding, and it's not getting a whole lot better, and the shoulder is starting to get thin in places, so I do one last test fit. It's too snug in the tube and I can't get it out by pulling, so I decide to blow it out from the motor tube end. Of course I'm ready to catch it with my other hand, when it pops out like a cork, skips accross the air hockey table, and onto the concrete garage floor breaking off the nose. CA and some sanding later, it's back in business, but now I'm thinking I can't send it back, so I have to find some solution to the shoulder.
So, I decide to take the plunge, cut off the shoulder. I then slit the old shoulder, removed a portion of it, so I could slip it back into the back of the cone 1.25" and then epoxied the shoulder back into the cone. I then took a 4" piece of loc tubing, slit it and re-glued it back together so it was a perfect fit inside the body tubes. This was my new shoulder. I epoxied that onto the old shoulder that was reduced to fit into the nose cone, and voila, a new perfect fitting shoulder.
Ok, now I can make some progress. So I look at my CG I need, and get out the number 8 shot, and put it into a baggie and stick it into the cone, and verify the weight is correct. Ok, it's good, but in pulling the baggie out, it snagged on some fiberglass and tore and now I have shot all over the counter, and the carpet, the cat is trying to eat it, and it's not good.
I re-weigh shot, and mix up my 15 minute epoxy, and I don't find paper cups like I normally use, so I'm thinking, I'm going to be smart and just put the epoxy into the baggie, mush it around to mix it in with the bb's and then squeeze it into the nose cone. Well, it just make a sticky mess that doesn't want to squeeze out so I only wind up with about 2/3 of what I need in the cone. Iv'e got epoxy all over my hands, it's now on the cone, get out the alcohol, and I'm out of paper towels. I get more under the bathroom sink, but knock over the garbage can in there that turns out is filled with scooped cat poop which is now all over the floor.
Out comes more shot, pour it into a new baggie, shot slips and goes all over the floor again. This time I mix it on wax paper and am able to squeeze it out like a cake decorating cone.
Finally get that in, verify the CG, install the bulkheads and decide that it's not a good idea to work on rockets from 12-4 in the morning....sigh. Finished it up the next day.
At least it turned out nicely. I used 1/16" fiberglass for the fins and pieces of body tube slotted to go over the fins for pseudo pivot plates. It's about the same size as an estes maxi version but much heavier due to the nose cone. It flies very nicely on G-75s or G-80's with 4 second delays. Markings from stickershock.
Sometimes things just go as planned, and sometimes the 5 minute job turns into 4 hours....
Frank
Does anybody have or have used one of the 4" Pershing nose cones from Performance Hobbies? Any dimensions and/or photos?
https://performancehobbies.com/secure/store.aspx?groupid=200
