My LOC 429SS came in last week. After studying the rocket design and reviewing the Rocksim file, this rocket is a dream. it's designed to be modified and improved upon. I like going high and fast, so I will be building this rocket to do just that. I decided to use a LOC IRIS 38mm as my camera platform instead of this rocket. I want to keep this rocket as light as possible, but I also want to build it strong and capable of withstanding supersonic flight. This pretty much how I build all of my high power rockets anyway. I will be running four 29/360 I200W Aerotech reloadable motors most of the time. These motors will give me 330 Newton seconds of impulse each for a total of 1320 Newton seconds - more impusle than a single 38mm J570W motor. I hate packing wadding, so I will design and install an ejection gas cooling chamber into the main body tube. I will delete the 3.0" center ring that comes with the rocket kit from the build and replace it with a LOC 3.0 bulkhead with two 1/2" ejection gas ports drilled into it. Following the bulkhead will be a couple of Chore Boy stainless steel scrubbing pads to help remove heat from the ejection gas stream. Then another LOC 3.0" bulkhead with four 1/4" gas ports and an eye bolt for the shock cord will follow the Chore boy pads.
The rocket will be able to operate a single or dual deploy rocket although it will be flown as a dual deploy rocket most of the time. Using a LOC 3.0" payload bay section. I will modify the payload section to work much like the "shotgun" tube design of the GLR Mariah rocket. A Raven 3 altimeter along with a Big Red Bee BRB900 GPS tracking transmitter and batteries will be housed in the payload section on a small electronics sled. The parachute will be housed inside a custom-built interior piston tube section attached to the payload section and deployed using a piston fired by an electronic match and small black powder charge. If I want to fly low altitude, the payload section and electronics can be removed, a section of regular body tube can be inserted in its place, and flown as a single deploy rocket.
The rocket's fins will be airfoiled and laminated with lightweight fiberglass cloth & aeropoxy. The motor tubes will be glassed with aeropoxy only as they are pretty stiff as is. The main body tube sections & payload section will also be laminated with lightweight fiberglass cloth and aeropoxy. The interior of the rocket will be coated with a polyurethane coating to facilitate cleaning. The motors will be retained using a simple home made center screw/washer motor retainer. Flying dual deploy on the four I motors, the rocket should fly comfortably to 6000 ft. plus altitudes.
O.K., lets get started. the first step is wash the nose cone with warm soap and water. After this, I trim off excess plastic from nose cone moulding seams, then I sand the seams smooth with 120 grit sandpaper. Next, I sand the entire nose cone down with 120 grit sandpaper and set it aside.
Next, I airfoil the leading and trailing edges of the rocket fins on a 6" bench disk sander and set them aside. Then I scuff up the 4 motor tubes and spot glue two pairs of tubes together with thick CA. I then join the the paired tube assemblies together using rubber bands and the tube coupler. I carefull align all tube assembles then I run four aeropoxy epoxy beads down the four center joints of the motor tubes. Next, I take a small piece of paper towel and insert the wadded up piece of towel approximately 1 inch into each center void on both ends of the motor tube assembly. I set the motor tube assembly aside to dry overnight. Tomorrow, I laminate the fins, sand and shape the fins, and install the fins onto the motor tube assembly. I'm going to stop here and will post tomorrow evening. I will also include pics. I didn't include pics of what I've done so far, as nothing really special has been done up to this point - just standard rocket building techniques have been utilized.
