~Loop Quantum Crapien~

A pile o' parts I've been collecting, compiling, building, routing out etc since I kinda crashed and burned with my whole "~Diary of a Crapien~" 100% scratch build attempt.

A little less "R&D" this time...(It did serve its purpose though:blush.

The airframe, couplers and motor mount tubing are ARR Blue Tube 2.0 vulcanized fiber. The nose cone is a 5:1 oJive from Performance Rocketry. All the other goodies are scratch fabricated 1/2" baltic birch, T6061 aluminum, 1/8" G10, galvanized steel and whatever else I end up throwing in the mix.

Built for a big "N" but should fly straight enough on an "L".

Pictured are a couple shots of said "pile o' parts" and an attachment of the RS9 dot RKT file.

Note Crapien I and Crapien II on the right.

FIRST EDIT: As this build evolves, it will be necessary to for me modify the .RKT file attached below. When I do modify and attach a modified design file in future posts, I'll come back here and edit inside the latest greatest in big fancy blue font.

--> LQC V1dot1 TAC 9 C G10 Fins.rkt @ post 30





View attachment Loop Quantum Crapien.rkt

Wow man ,I wondered what ever happen to that project :confused2:

Good luck with the new project.

Paul

OK, let's start from the top.

The PR nose cone and ARR tubing are both "LOC Compatible" but don't seem to be compatible with each other. The OD of the shoulder is too large or the ID of the tubing is too small, doesn't matter.

I sanded the shoulder until it was waaay too thin and sanded the BT until it was as thin as I could tolerate. I could stomp them together at this point but getting them back apart was a two person op. Not good enough.

My only recourse was to make the ID of the NC shoulder thicker so I could get the OD thinner.

Once I figured out that a double wrap of whetted glass is too much to keep my two hands on and that 5 pumps of Proline in a kegger cup will pretty catch fire before you're done with it:roll:, I mixed a 3 pump batch and decided a single ID layer would be appropriate to start with.

Well believe it or no, it turned out perfect with just one wrap.

I used little cheapie clips with the sharp ends taped off to hold the wrap from falling into the abyss before I inflated a party balloon to keep the glass compressed for curing.

I gotta real kick out of getting to pop the same balloon twice and was pleased with the lay-up. It's a little resin rich but will be just fine.

It's a good thing the double layer thing failed, one layer was plenty. The heavy glass I have looks like the same stuff used to mold the cone, little cotton runners through it and all.

The balloon didn't inflate the Y axis long enough to compress the the very end of the glass to the shoulder so I marked and cut off about an inch and a quarter with a dremel + diamond blade. Still about six inches left, should be fine.

I tried some 80 grit on a power sander for quite a while but this gel-coat is some hard stuff. I then hit it with the "Enforcer" ( a 4 1/2" flap disk grinder) and then hand sanded with some 40 grit to take down the high spots and once again smoothed it out with an 80 grit power sander.

I can get these parts assembled/dis-assembled by myself now on carpet without causing a hernia but some more fine tuning is needed before they get to the field. :gavel:

OK, I'll bite, why is your Blue Tube white? Did I miss something?

dixontj93060 said:

OK, I'll bite, why is your Blue Tube white? Did I miss something?

Click to expand...

Awww man, you blew my grand finale Tim!

Just kidding, I guess it does look kinda weird. I've been collecting these parts for a few months now and some of them have had a little "Scotty Time" (white primer) previous to the start of this thread.

I'll try to keep the linearity in check.:blush:

Glad to see your back in business.

Will I see you at Midwest Power?

blackjack2564 said:

Glad to see your back in business.

Will I see you at Midwest Power?

Click to expand...

Actually just layin' low as I gathered the parts.

MWP8? Been tentatively scheduling since last year to take vacation that week but the foundry gods have different plans for me. :gavel:

LDRS is lookin' good though.

I made some modifications to the plan before I started cutting the airframe tubing to size.

I extended the main airframe to 42" to make room for a TAC 9C chute plus associated goodies that go with it. I also scooted the threaded rods further forward on the Av-Bay so I can still reach far enough in to get the wing nuts started. confused2: ? , the main and drogue airframes will have bulkheads with holes cut through it to accommodate the threaded rods, U-Bolts and charge canisters. This way, I get the main and drogue airframes secured to the Av-Bay without using external screws or rivets.)

I also weighed EVERY component and punched it into the RockSim Mass Overide. The results are actually not too much different from what the program came up with.

View attachment LQC V1dot1.rkt

After I got the nosecone glassed and sanded to fit the airframe, I noticed that it didn't quite fit square, close to flush on one side and a little more than an 1/8" inch on the other.

So, when I marked and cut the tubing, I cut both ends because of irregularities in the factory cuts. (sitting on a glass table and rotated next to each other, they don't always stay parallel).

I used some masking paper wrapped around the tubing to mark and a diamond wheel to cut (< 1mm kerf).

Still no joy with the NC to BT fit, exact same gap.

Need to see if the NC tip orbits around while attached to the BT and rolled on a very flat surface. That should tell me what's off. Anyone's input on that one would be appreciated.

Here's some of the parts hawged together outside just to make it real.

Unfortunately, the Jet Stream is headed back up where it's supposed to be so I'll be spending some quality time with a leaf rake instead of epoxy or MWP this weekend (gotta work anyway).

Been working much more than playing the last couple weeks but I did manage to get a couple things done.

The first pic is cheap mock-up of the taped together fin templates, the cordless saw I hawged the subsequent fin lines out of 1/2" birch ply with and a sacrificial red shirt fin that I turned into a centering ring.

After I took a pic of the hawged out fins (see Oct. 28 post) I drilled them out and screwed them together to hopefully cure some minor tweakage/warp.

Screwing them together made it real easy to get them absolutely PERFECT size and consistency wise on a 20" disc sander.

And a quick "BTW"...

I also managed to get my nosecone and main airframe combo rolled on a big hunk o' glass. The tip of the nosecone doesn't seem to do any swirly twirly stuff while rolling so I guess we're golden as Y axis alignment goes. Just some minor sanding tweaking needed for an attractive fit.

Work, Holidays, Work, Weather, and a downright loss of patience for trying to straighten out and glass tweaked 1/2" birch fins in a cold environment ( see here)
https://www.rocketryforum.com/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=146613
...has led me to purchase a sheet of 0.1875" G-10 for the fins and whatever else I throw in the recipe.

Here's where I'm at today, I'd go outside now and cut them out but I'll wait until for a nice tropical day of 10~15 ABOVE zero F.:cry:

BTW...GO PACKERS

I`m with you !

Paul

Nice picture of your feet...... and ....er.... the fins too!

blackjack2564 said:

Nice picture of your feet...... and ....er.... the fins too!

Click to expand...

Could have been worse ,at least he wasn`t wearing Penny Loafers !

Paul

blackjack2564 said:

Nice picture of your feet...... and ....er.... the fins too!

Click to expand...

11 1/2 EE Steel Toe + Internal Mets...for "Scale".

I took said "chalkboard colored G-10" and cut all six fins out with a 21 PI blade only breaking one in the process.

Got the cut out fins and tooling clamped down so I could cut the G-10 out over my birch using a flush cut router bit. In theory, I should be able to just trim out the G-10 over the birch fins to get a mirror image .....right?

All set up and feelin' pretty righteous about PPE.

BTW, when I win the Nobel prize for building this rocket, I'll release the 3rd pic to the media as that's the smartest look on my face to date.:kill:

WOW! My theoretical plans sucked a$$ bigtime. My $14 router bit woosed out inside of a few seconds.

I find it amazing how fast it trashed the bit. I'm glad I didn't hose it down with isopropanol to keep the cut cool, smooth and lubricated like I planned to. That woulda been fun.

I have tried a number of things to cut G10... For small fins I typically use a Dremel diamond wheel and "nibble" my way around the pattern. For larger fins I simply use a jigsaw--slow going, but accurate and, although the blades hold up reasonably well, they are cheap to replace.

Scott Evil said:

WOW! My theoretical plans sucked a$$ bigtime. My $14 router bit woosed out inside of a few seconds.

I find it amazing how fast it trashed the bit. I'm glad I didn't hose it down with isopropanol to keep the cut cool, smooth and lubricated like I planned to. That woulda been fun.

Click to expand...

I figured I'd be golden with a router but obviously not. How do the Pros cut this stuff out?

Scott,

From a woodworkers perspective, a $14 router bit is going to crap out on you really fast.

A top quality Freud top shear flush trim bit will cost you about $35, and last a long time, as long as your router has the power to keep it going.

Another suggestion is to go slow, I mean ridiculously slow. The router motor whine should not noticeably drop in pitch if you are gentle enough.

Good luck!

G.D.

Scott Evil said:

I figured I'd be golden with a router but obviously not. How do the Pros cut this stuff out?

Click to expand...

If you can get a carbide bit, it will cut it like butter. I space the fins apart on the sheet and use either a jigsaw or circular saw. Small fins I use a carbide burr in a Dremel and make multiple passes.

Scott Evil said:

I figured I'd be golden with a router but obviously not. How do the Pros cut this stuff out?

Click to expand...

Table saw or chop saw, always with a carbide blade.

Scott Evil said:

I figured I'd be golden with a router but obviously not. How do the Pros cut this stuff out?

Click to expand...

Verry expensive - high speed bits. not somehting you'll find at sears or lowes.
I am sure if you ask any curcuit board company, they will tell you the type of bit thier cnc machine uses...

Mcmaster has some...
https://www.mcmaster.com/#carbon-fiber-cutting-router-bits/=argq63

the fiber glass ones look like you can get for 8.00(not expensive i guess, and can run through them pretty fast.)

Oh yah, carbide...duh!

I haven't trashed tooling this fast since I was a kid.:marshmallow:

Ordered some of these https://www.mcmaster.com/#orders/=arle8a

While I'm waiting for my carbide tooling, I made some changes to the Rocksim file to reflect recent G10 substitutions. I obviously haven't weighed the replacement components yet but my guess is Rocksim has the mass pretty close. We'll see once I get it all cut out and weighed and mass overrided-ed-ed.

I also added primary and redundant (aluminum not PVC) charge canisters to the "drawn" design and a 54" PML Pilot chute to pull the deployment bag apart.

You may have noticed that the threaded rod is way too long. more on that later.

View attachment LQC V1dot1 TAC 9 C G10 Fins.rkt