New Cardstock Conversion, Little Joe II

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Blades

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After finishing the Soyuz, I decided to tackle one of Ton's less complicated models, the Little Joe II. The only really tricky part of this build was the escape tower. I ended up using 1/16" basswood squares glued inside the corners of the tower to give it some strength. Altogether, I'm quite pleased with the way this bird turned out. It might be a while before I can fly her, though. I've got some serious drifts between me and my launching spot.

Little Joe II.jpeg Little Joe II business end.JPG Little Joe II detail.JPG
 
After finishing the Soyuz, I decided to tackle one of Ton's less complicated models, the Little Joe II. The only really tricky part of this build was the escape tower. I ended up using 1/16" basswood squares glued inside the corners of the tower to give it some strength. Altogether, I'm quite pleased with the way this bird turned out. It might be a while before I can fly her, though. I've got some serious drifts between me and my launching spot.

View attachment 40537 View attachment 40538 View attachment 40539

Looks good. My son built this one to fly also. He ditched the cardstock truss section completely and built it with dowels like the Estes/Semroc 1/70. It was his first tower build.

BTW, it makes a great demo bird. It flies slow and low. As fat as it is, it still made an excellent first flight on a B6-4.

https://forums.rocketshoppe.com/showthread.php?t=3399&highlight=little+joe

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Built and flown this paper model many times. Flies well on a Estes C6-3. A C6-5 ejection is after it arcs over. Yes, I recommend to add some doweling to the truss work on the inside. I actually have mine seperate at the body midpoint, silver and white. Used a BT 50 tube to allow for larger parachute with a 18mm engine mount. Very stable.

When Jim took these pictures, he thought it was an old Centuri LJ II until I told him otherwise.

DSC00544.JPG

First flight on a C6-5
DSC00541.JPG
 
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Massrockit,
That looks like a pretty flight. After building the Soyuz, I wasn't sure how heavy the LJ II would be, so I put in a 24 mm mount. I figure I can use an adapter for 18mm motors or put in something with a little more oomph for fun. I put a small music wire loop at the base of the truss to hook the capsule's parachute to, hopefully, this will allow a landing with little damage to the escape tower. The body will return on its own chute.
 
After finishing the Soyuz, I decided to tackle one of Ton's less complicated models, the Little Joe II. The only really tricky part of this build was the escape tower. I ended up using 1/16" basswood squares glued inside the corners of the tower to give it some strength. Altogether, I'm quite pleased with the way this bird turned out. It might be a while before I can fly her, though. I've got some serious drifts between me and my launching spot.

View attachment 40537 View attachment 40538 View attachment 40539

Blades,

Gotta link?

Daniel
 
After finishing the Soyuz, I decided to tackle one of Ton's less complicated models, the Little Joe II. The only really tricky part of this build was the escape tower. I ended up using 1/16" basswood squares glued inside the corners of the tower to give it some strength. Altogether, I'm quite pleased with the way this bird turned out. It might be a while before I can fly her, though. I've got some serious drifts between me and my launching spot.

View attachment 40537 View attachment 40538 View attachment 40539

May I copy this the the LJII Gallery?
 
Built and flown this paper model many times. Flies well on a Estes C6-3. A C6-5 ejection is after it arcs over. Yes, I recommend to add some doweling to the truss work on the inside. I actually have mine seperate at the body midpoint, silver and white. Used a BT 50 tube to allow for larger parachute with a 18mm engine mount. Very stable.

When Jim took these pictures, he thought it was an old Centuri LJ II until I told him otherwise.

DSC00544.JPG

First flight on a C6-5
DSC00541.JPG

I'd like to copy yours to the gallery as well if I may.
 
Very nice....is the bt a wrapped craft tube or cardstock. The largest I've done with cardstock is bt55 Phoenix. That looks like a bt80 size.
 
The only commercial body tube is the internal Estes BT-50 in mine. All other parts are rolled and folded cardstock. I used 110# cardstock for main tube and capsule and 62# for LES. Structual strength was from the internal tube and paper rings. Thus it was quite light but strong. BobH is the master here at my club (CMASS) and he usually double walls his builts. I wanted to try to lighten my builts and work on more internal re-enforcement than body. Also the pictures show the first flights without the nozzles. Wanted see it fly at our club launch. Later I added the nozzles and sucessfully have flown with them. It is much fun to insert and remove the motor with them. :)

I did add some weight up front for stablitiy, but I can not remember how much.
 
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Very nice....is the bt a wrapped craft tube or cardstock. The largest I've done with cardstock is bt55 Phoenix. That looks like a bt80 size.

Mine has an internal BT 50 as motor mount/stuffer tube. I used a double lamination of 110 lb stock for the body, add a couple of centering rings and it's quite strong as well as light. When in it's mount, the motor comes flush with the ends of the faux nozzles.
 
After finishing the Soyuz, I decided to tackle one of Ton's less complicated models, the Little Joe II. The only really tricky part of this build was the escape tower. I ended up using 1/16" basswood squares glued inside the corners of the tower to give it some strength. Altogether, I'm quite pleased with the way this bird turned out. It might be a while before I can fly her, though. I've got some serious drifts between me and my launching spot.

View attachment 40537 View attachment 40538 View attachment 40539

I ment a link to this rocket...LJ II
 
I had forgotten all about this model.

I was going to build one after seeing Paul's (Massrokit) fly. Whatever I was working on at the time must have taken long enough that when I was done, the LJ II had slipped my mind.

So thanks for reminding me about this.
 
Got it!

Thanks.

What BT did you use for the LJII?

Daniel

The only body tube I used was the BT 50 for the engine mount. Everything else is cardstock. The diameter of the rocket is about 3 1/8". I suppose, if you wanted to skin a regular BT, you could scale the wraps down a bit to fit a 3" tube like the Big Daddy's. Seems a bit of overkill to me, though. A double lamination of 110 lb cardstock gives a pretty stout body.
 
How did you double wall this? I tried gluing the body pieces to another layer of card stock and it kinked when I tried to roll the tube. I'm not so worried about strength in flight but handling on the ground. Where else have you reinforced the structure? 110 Lb card stock feel weak in the tube wall.
 
How did you double wall this? I tried gluing the body pieces to another layer of card stock and it kinked when I tried to roll the tube

I use a piece of polished PVC pipe as a rolling pin to get the cardstock into a curve, apply glue and lay the two pieces together, leaving an overlap of 1/2 to 3/4" (this leaves a built in glue tab to finish the tube). Using the rolling pin, I roll the laminate over a soft surface before the glue has set, this should give an almost complete curve with no kinking. Let the glue dry and then apply adhesive to the glue tab and finish the tube. The rolling pin can be used again to help get a good clean seam. Once everything sets up, you've got a pretty strong tube to work with, centering rings for a stuffer tube can add even more strength as well as keeping the tube round.
 
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