12" Talon on a P

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Once the epoxy set, we test fit the fins to get the measurement for the upper centering ring:

54testfitfortopringplacement.jpg


James and Charlie proceed to install the upper centering ring:

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Meanwhile, there's Joe just trying to feel the power between his legs:

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"I swear you guys, that wasn't me!":

57Iswearguysthatwasntme.jpg
 
Cher believes in peace. Do you? Do you believe?

58allhailqueenCher.jpg


Houston- We have a problem:

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That's the last one!!

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Giving thanks and praise to our fallen soldier:

61sayingaquickprayer.jpg


Charlie prepares to sacrifice himself, for the greater good:

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And off he goes, to hurl himself at the mercy of the beer gods:

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Our prayers have been answered! The HBWOTA has returned with reinforcements!

64nottoworryHBWOTAisbackwithreinfor.jpg


We'll end there for now, since much more celebrating than building was done in an effort to rejoice in this momentous occasion.
 
We last left our heroes as they attempted to recover from the great loss that was an empty keg of Fat Tire. With a full and speedy recovery made by all, our heroes continue along the journey of what is Talon 2.0: It Burns When I P.

The next step was to apply the foam to the sides of each of the small fins. This was done by first laying the fin on the foam and then tracing it's shape:

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Next we sprayed the area with adhesive. Joe shows his 1337 tagging sk1llz:

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Hitting the backside of the fin:

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Then popping it in place and applying gentle pressure. Here Joe is being careful not to put finger divots into the foam:

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Once it sets for a bit, we used the hot wire cutter to trim the foam to size:

65Finishingfins.jpg
 
The complete set of fins, ready for finishing then bagging and tagging:

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Not just any fins though.. C.G.D.C.F.'s! (Charlie's G.D. Composite Fins.)

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At this point we opted to move on to glassing the airframe so it would have time to cure before the day was over.

Well, any glassing job needs an appropriate glassing stand in order to do the job and do it well. Because the quality of this tool is so important, we took our time, brainstormed some and came up with this ultra cutting edge glassing station of doom:

73HighTechGlassingStation.jpg


You may all marvel in it's complexity. Knowing there's a market for this type of high tech device, I think we might put the plans on craigslist. Or you can simply send a check for $1,000 to SpartaChris. That works too.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the garage, Joe happily surrenders his man card by drinking something other than beer in the Rocket Palace of the Apocalypse:

74Joehappilysurrendershismancard.jpg


Truth be told, I surrendered mine long ago. Those things are good!
 
We want to thank Lee Scott for donating 2 gallons of epoxy resin for this project. Even though he's not pictured yet, Lee is really the puppet master behind the scenes, pulling the strings. Anyway, thanks Lee for your donation!

75ThanksLee.jpg


So back to the glassing. James shows us why we need to hide the women and sheep. Friggin n00b:

76Hidethewomenandsheep.jpg


We started the task by first drawing a center line along the length of the airframe tube. This helps us align the edge of the cloth to keep things even. We then taped the edge of the cloth to the airframe tube to hold it down so we could wrap the glass around the tube and trim off any excess:

77Tackeditdownto.jpg


Once the glass was wrapped snugly around the tube, we marked the overlap we wanted:

78Markingoverlap.jpg


And proceeded to trim off the excess:

79Trimming.jpg
 
Meanwhile, Cher looks on approvingly:

80Cherlooksonapprovingly.jpg


With the overlap trimmed and the tape now removed, it was time to wet out the glass:

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82wetoutcomplete.jpg


Joe, being the proud Grandpapa he is, gives the tube a hug:

83Proudgrampsgivesthetubeahug.jpg


Really he's showing us his inverted guerilla tape of death maneuver he learned in 'Nam:

84invertedgurillatapeofdeathmaneuve.jpg


Oh man, he owned the end of that tube! He made it his b(censored)h!

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With the ends clamped down ninja style and the tube all wetted out, it was time to set it in our all natural curing oven:

86solarcuringoven.jpg
 
With the glassing done, it was time to get back to the fins. Next up is to bevel them. Here Charlie takes some measurements and draws some lines so we know where the trimming should begin:

87backtothefins.jpg


Next he fashioned a jig of incredible design using a piece of angle iron, some bubble gum, duct tape, a piece of straw and some clamps. I'm not sure what the bubble gum, duct tape and piece of straw were for, but they were good enough for MacGyver so...

88finbevelingjigofdoom.jpg


Using the fin beveling jig of doom and the hot wire cutter, beveling the fins was relatively quick and painless:

89workingthewayaround.jpg


And the finished product:

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Welp, the fins are done for today, so Joe would like to take this opportunity to prove something to us:

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Not sure what that's all about, but he sure looks excited! :D

We also took this opportunity to add some glass to the underside of the fin mount tube at the points where the U-Bolts will be mounted:

93GlassforUBolts.jpg


47ubolts.jpg
 
With the day winding down, it was time to finish up and get the piano hinge mounted to the airframe of the rocket.

The first thing we did was epoxied the inside tube in place. The idea is to bolt the hinge, leftover from the Talon's previous flight, to it's respective fin and use that as a guide for where to mount the hinge on the rocket.

Here's a shot of one of the fin channels lined up with the fin slot:

95Liningupchannelofinsidetube.jpg


And a fin popped in place for good measure. James looks in awe at the "Really big rocket". Friggin n00b.

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Charlie slathers the epoxy in the back end:

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And we pop a fin in place as a holder while it sets:

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Once the epoxy has set, we drill the holes for the rivets:

102Drillingholesforrivets.jpg


And I get a little trigger happy:

103UsingRivetGun.jpg


Finished product:

104Rivetingexperiencecompleted.jpg


In an attempt to get his man card back, Joe throws those horns:

94Joeworksongettinghismancardback.jpg
 
So a while back, Joe had his Rocket Shop of Doom remodeled and turned into the Rocket Palace of the Apocalypse. During this re-model, Joe had installed in the roof of his palace a place to hide the bodies of the people he had to kill because they ticked him off.

Well, it turns out that hiding bodies isn't the only reason he had the doors installed into the cellar. The real reason is so we could stand the rocket up in his Palace and test fit the fins:

105HoleInRoof.jpg


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And this pic says it all:

108Niceview.jpg
 
With the build day now at an end, it's time to clean up. We started by first draining the epoxy pumps using this high tech epoxy draining system:

97aEpoxyDrainingSystem.jpg


And of course, what build thread would be complete without a picture of Charlie looking normal:

98CharlieSneezedSicko.jpg


Welp, that's all for now. I'm tired and I stink and need a shower. Till then, I leave you with this random Chuck Norris fact: Chuck Norris' house has no doors, just walls that he walks through.
 
Alright, now that everything has been cross posted over, how about some fresh content?

With the fins cut out, it was time to get them glassed and bagged. This would ultimately prove easier said than done..

To start, we had to break out Tims Mystery Device of Doom again:

109TimsMysteryDeviceOfDoom.jpg


If you think I'm kidding, that's really what it's called! Look, it even says so right on the device!

110TimsMysteryDeviceOfDoom.jpg


And lemme tell you, the thing really sucks!

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Here's a quick shot of the goodie's we'll be using for today's session:

111Materials.jpg


The first thing we did was check to make sure we had enough cloth to do the layup.

112Finswithglassthatsurvivedafire.jpg


As it turns out, we didn't, but more on that in a few. It turns out this cloth was no ordinary cloth. Nope, it was super dooper awesome cloth. You see, this cloth was so reeking of awesomeness, it survived a house fire. That's right. A house burned down and this cloth escaped unscathed, save for a little soot in parts. Nothing can destroy this cloth. Well, nothing and Chuck Norris.

So, not having enough cloth to do the job, we opted for the next best thing- fiberglass mat.

Now before you get all crazy about how the bonding agent in the mat won't dissolve with epoxy resin, let me just point out that we know. Truth is, the epoxy resin will bond more than adequately enough for our purposes, so no worries.

Moving on- We laid the fins out and traced the pattern to be cut out:

113glassmat.jpg


And we cut it out:

114cuttoshape.jpg
 
The fiberglass mat is like 13 oz cloth, so we're going to add one layer of glass cloth to each side. This will help make finishing easier. Here's the cut out patterns spaced out on the cloth:

115laidoutpatternonglass.jpg


And Joe, a little dazed and confused after too much time with that marker:

116joehuffsamarker.jpg


One the pattern is drawn, Joe whips out the Super Pizza Cutter of Destruction and cuts them out:

119SuperPizzaCutterofDestruction.jpg
 
Once the glass is all cut to shape, we laid out the materials to do the bagging:

120preppingbaggingmaterials.jpg


And the glass wetting out station:

121baggingsurface.jpg


And our good buddy Lee Scott of 6" Thor Fame decided to roll by:

122resin.jpg


(Yes, there's a joke in there somewhere. Just gotta look for it.)
 
First we started with a piece of mat:

123startedwithmat.jpg


Topped it off with a piece of our super dooper indestructable cloth:

124clothplacedontop.jpg


And started wetting it out. Here you can see Charlie put his massage school skillz to good use:

125massagingtheresinin.jpg
 
Continue to work the resin in:

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Joe and Charlie using their resin spreading tool of death:

127spreadingtoolofdeath.jpg


Glass is almost fully wet out. The idea is to get close and let the vacuum do the rest:

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129.jpg
 
Next we carefully transferred the wet cloth to the fin:

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Using a little teamwork, the fin was transferred to the bagging area where the next layer of glass will be applied:

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And a rinse/repeat of the process for the other side:

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The full set of fins, ready for bagging:

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The layer of peel ply, followed by the layer of breather laid in place:

136peelplyandbreather.jpg


Folding over the bagging material. We're using none other than gorilla tape to seal that bad boy off!

137baggingfilm.jpg
 
Tim's vacuuming apparatus of awesomeness in business:

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Go Tim's vacuuming thingie, go!

139undervacuum.jpg


Tims Vacuuming apparatus of 1337-ness performing at a high level, as expected:

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With the vacuuming under way, it was time to set the fins in our environmentally friendly solar powered curing oven until proper greening commenced:

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So we learned a valuable lesson when vacuuming these fins. The lesson learned is it is entirely possible to draw a bit too much vacuum!

Sometime during the process, the vacuum was so much that it literally crushed the foam and bunched up the glass in the process. In fact, the fins came out so hideous that they broke my camera.

How hideous were they you ask?

Lets use the ugly scale to determine where the fins fit, starting here:

uglyalan.jpg


Nope, not quite. How about this?:

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Getting closer, but nope.. How about:

ugly.jpg


Closer yet.. Hrmmm.. This one is more like it!


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That's how gnarly our fins look. Suffice it to say we'll be remaking them.
 
So this pretty much says it all about the way we do things:

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Find more at their website, www.foxtrot.com

While the fins were doing their curing thing, we began resurrecting the sacred tail cone, errrr, boat tail, errrr, tail boat cone, err.. How about we call it CGDBT (Charlie's G!D! Boat Tail) from here on out, eh?

Before beginning work, we took a moment to reflect and ponder Joe's magnificently brilliant centerpiece:

143EnjoyingthecenterpieceofJoesR-1.jpg


Next we pulled out the molds for inspection, on the off chance we'd need to re-do them. Turns out Joe was keeping them in his attic/dead body dump off, so they were as good as new:

144InspectingOldMolds.jpg


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Since we're making CGDBT, we won't be needing to use the full length of the mold for our lay up. After taking a measurement on the molds and making a mark on the angle iron (By the way James, you still owe Joe a new one), James and Joe begin measuring and cutting the cloth:

146JamesandCraterJoecutting.jpg


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Meanwhile, I embark on my karate kid impression:

148PracticingtheKarateKidinMe.jpg


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We also treat the molds with a dose of liquid teflon, to aid in the release of the part once complete:

150LiquidTeflon.jpg


While one mold was being worked on, the other was being used to test fit the glass:

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We learned the last time that it's best to pre-cut the areas of the glass likely to bunch when the glass is laid in the mold:

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With the glass pre-trimmed and the mold ready for the layup, Joe takes some time to mix himself a drink:

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We begin the layup process by pressing the mat to the center of the mold and pouring the resin down the middle:

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We then carefully work it up along the sides:

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After a relatively quick amount of time, the part is cured enough for us to pop it off:

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Charlie, using the force:

161Charlieusestheforce.jpg
 
Next we need to trim the excess. We laid in the motor tube to see how well things line up. So far so good!

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Using Crater Joe's favorite parachute retention device to mask off the area needing to be cut:

164trimpartsmarked.jpg


And Charlie, getting crazy with the grinder:

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Grinding fiberglass is one heck of a nasty job. Please, make sure you use adequate respiratory and eye protection. Otherwise, you might just end up like Charlie, and well, the world doesn't really want that. :)

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And the first trimmed piece:

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Not a bad looking part! Charlie throws some celebratory horns:

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To be honest, he kinda looks like something out of a slasher movie, but that's a whole different thread.

The two halves line up pretty good:

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All in all not a bad weekend worth of work. We decided to reward ourselves a bit, and scare the neighbors in the process by putting the rocket together as we have it now:

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Welcome back to life old friend! Can't wait to get you finished and on the pad with that big 'ol P motor!

That's all I have for now. I'll leave you with this:

ChuckNorris-1.jpg


Till next time.
 
You know, the last time we had people tell us it wouldn't work, we happily proved them wrong. We'll be happy in this case as well.

Or, put another way.. If we want your opinion, we'll give it to you. :)

you guys are very funny, your post makes me smile alot

and don't worry about my opinion, mi knowledge costs too much for you.... i'll keep all for wealthy builders

enjoy your risky flights and forget about me :cool:
 
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