BT-80 Mercury Redstone Build.

Due to my inability to pay $50 bucks for a Estes Mercury Redstone on Fee-bay I decided it was just time to scratch one out. I downloaded all the info I could off the internet and scaled it for a BT-80. I thought there would be far more scale data on this rocket than I have found and at least some better pictures. Ether NASA forgot to take pictures and write stuff down or some is hording all the information. I did once see a website that would sell you a blueprint, but for the life of me I can't find it again. Anyway I did get enough info to get started.

I dove into my parts box and it looks like I can build it all from what I have on hand. The center core of the capsule is a BT-52. I whipped up some ply centering rings in my shop, and after about five tries I got the main body cone done. Its nice to just use some normal good old Elmers white glue once and a while. I'v about had it with CA. I'v used some good card stock and doubled it up where I can its made for a pretty tight capsule, I might skip the flooding with CA crap. I printed out a fin template guild with 12 fins and used that to mark out the ribs, then cut some small strips of card stock and add some detail to the top of the capsule. The small shroud on the bottom part of the capsule to my amazement, was cut and fit in one try and glued it on with out a fuss. So I must be on my guard, the rocket gods do not liked to be beaten so easily. I'm probably going to glue my hand to my hiney with CA when I go in for a scratch.

I don't think I'm going to go into a super amount of detail on this rocket, but where I can if its not a hassle I will add it. More to come.

TA

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Awesome! I've thought about doing one of these for a while, but I just never got around to it. I'm looking forward to seeing how this turns out!

Wow! Great project. The capsule looks great.

I just did a double layer cardstock shroud on my Nike Tomahawk and was surprised by how strong it was.
Stacking one shroud inside the other makes a tapered "step" on the inside top that fits the tube better.

Looking good
The Redstone sure is a pretty rocket.
I have a #1921 kit I bought off of harass.
Its one of those...keep it sealed up or build it kits at this point.
I think the "Build it' will win out over time.

Have you checked the scale section?? I posted some stuff relating to the Redstone IIRC...

Your other choice is to get yourself a copy of Peter Alway's "Rockets of the World" book from NARTS... it's a little pricey, but worth every penny I assure you... TONS of great information in there...

Your other choice is to search on the NASA Technical Resource Server (NTRS) and see what you can find on the Mercury Redstone.

Sometimes you REALLY have to do some digging to find this stuff.

Nice build! Good luck with it. You're not really missing anything with the Estes version anyway IMHO... I've got one and I'm less than impressed (the modern version anyway).

Later and good luck! OL JR

Considering that the book cost $35 back in 1993 when it first came out, and 19 years later it's selling for $30 from NARTS, I'd call RotW *dirt cheap*!

Of course, I'm biased.

Peter Alway

sandman said:

No sense reinventing the wheel.

These may help.

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Well crap I'v crunched 90% of the numbers already. I drew the fins in open office and I have them all done they are going to be a built up card stock and basswood frame. I just drew one and cut, flipped it and paste, then cut and paste three more times. Iv scaled off and built most of the tower already, Its looking like I boo booed some of my numbers My tower doesn't narrow off as much as it should at the top, I might rework it or start over we will see? I kinda put an all day into it already. Told ya the rocket gods would get me. :bangpan: Your PDFs will help greatly thank you. It just kinda dawned on me that maybe I should have put this thread in the scale section. Hummm...

TA

I finished the capsule and escape tower last night. Even though I goofed on the tower a bit it still looks good. It would be a shame to stomp on it and start over. Sorry there aren't any process pictures I get building and I forget to take pictures, although I did find a use for that nasty blue Estes motor tube.

TA

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Nice tower!

What a great looking build you have going.You show some very good talent,wish I had the same.Looking forward to more of this incredible build.cjp.

Now this is a SCRATCH build....
More!
More!

Just had to tell you this is a wonderful build ,great workmanship !!!

I`m watching.


Paul T

thobin said:

I finished the capsule and escape tower last night. Even though I goofed on the tower a bit it still looks good. It would be a shame to stomp on it and start over. Sorry there aren't any process pictures I get building and I forget to take pictures, although I did find a use for that nasty blue Estes motor tube.
TA

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Great work on the tower!

cjp said:

What a great looking build you have going.You show some very good talent,wish I had the same.Looking forward to more of this incredible build.cjp.

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Thanks.

TA

Thanks for all the complements guys. :grin: Its good to hang out with some guys that can appreciate the awesomeness of the Redstone.
Instead of "Oh that's nice." and a sideways glance, that I get from the wife.:sigh:

I put the motor mount together, just got to add some more fillets and let it dry. I got the fins cut out for the most part, just need to build up the frames and wrap them. The bottom piece will be balsa and the frame will be 1/16" basswood. I used a wooden clay sculpting tool to make the creases in the paper to get a nice sharp fold. I still think I like using a ballpoint pen for this it seems to do a better job of it.

Don't know how far I will get tonight kinda tired from the up all night building the escape tower.


TA

PeterAlway said:

Considering that the book cost $35 back in 1993 when it first came out, and 19 years later it's selling for $30 from NARTS, I'd call RotW *dirt cheap*!

Of course, I'm biased.

Peter Alway

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Sorry Peter... that wasn't a jab at you... I was just referencing the OP's comment in his first post about not being willing to drop $50 bucks on a Estes MercRedstone...

If he isn't willing to drop $50 on a kit, $30-35 for a book might seem "pricey"...

I wholeheartedly agree that ROTW is well worth every penny... it's an AMAZING resource and my hat is certainly off to you! Heck it'd be a bargain at twice the price... In fact, before it had been picked up by NARTS, I was continuously looking on Fleabay for a copy... I'd heard of folks managing to swipe one up for about $75... however, every one I ever looked at went for at least twice that, at a bare minimum, and sometimes many times more than that... I bid on one to $75 and even went up a little north of there, but eventually got blown out of the water when it went into triple digit pricing... the final price on it ended up being like $450...

Too bad you don't get residuals on those prices... you could probably retire... LOL

Later! OL JR

BTW... nearly completely forgot, I got so tied up in the ROTW thing...

"That's nice..."

Haha... Seriously EXTREMELY COOL! KUTGW!!! Looks ace sharp!

Later!

luke strawwalker said:

Your other choice is to get yourself a copy of Peter Alway's "Rockets of the World" book from NARTS... it's a little pricey, but worth every penny I assure you... TONS of great information in there...

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Does this book have scale drawings/data of the rockets? If so I want one and 30 bones is a great price. Most rocket books I have just have history, overall height and diameter and some times a wingspan.


TA

luke strawwalker said:

If he isn't willing to drop $50 on a kit, $30-35 for a book might seem "pricey"...

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Its more of a not worth $50, I'm with you its just not all THAT nice of a kit. Now if the book is as cool as you say it is, that would be worth $50.

TA

luke strawwalker said:

Sorry Peter... that wasn't a jab at you... I was just referencing the OP's comment in his first post about not being willing to drop $50 bucks on a Estes MercRedstone...
!

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Oh, I don't feel jabbed at. To the contrary, quite pleased you mentioned the book at all. But when I have students paying $130 for a softcover textbook with a similar page count, I can't consider $30 expensive.

Peter Alway

thobin said:

Does this book have scale drawings/data of the rockets? If so I want one and 30 bones is a great price. Most rocket books I have just have history, overall height and diameter and some times a wingspan.
TA

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It's got all the dimensions you need for a well-proportioned model for 95% of the rockets covered. (I've been going back over the drawings and have discovered the iffy 5%). Typically it's got overall height, diameter, fin span, tip chord, root chord, fin position on body, diameters of each stage, transition lengths, transition locations, stage break positions... Oh let's see if I can get you a sample...



Let's see how that attaches. And yes, I'm being cruel--a Redstone, but not the one you are working on. Mercury-Redstone is in the book, which you can buy from NARTS. The image was degraded a bit on upload--the drawings are cleaner in the book. But you Insert it into a Word file with .7" margins all around and it should scale about right.

thobin said:

Does this book have scale drawings/data of the rockets? If so I want one and 30 bones is a great price. Most rocket books I have just have history, overall height and diameter and some times a wingspan.


TA

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Absolutely... each rocket has from a few paragraphs to a few pages of history on the vehicle, its missions, and its place in the greater history of space exploration in general, usually with some actual photographs. Then there's some EXCELLENT scale drawings complete with virtually every reasonable detail and the relevant measurements for scaling purposes to build the thing as accurately as you can. They also then have a color-guided drawing showing the actual sizes/shapes/locations of various lettering, insignia, and markings, paint patterns, etc. along with a color chart describing the actual colors. Lettering is often accompanied by a sample font or the style of font so the lettering can be accurately duplicated, and in the case of various vehicles that had particular vehicle numbers or alphanumeric identifiers on it (like the encoded "UE" on some of the early Redstones, which was an alphanumeric code for "Huntsville" IIRC,) the various vehicle numbers or alphanumeric codes are also listed as they were associated with particular vehicles on particular missions, in order.

They're an absolutely amazing resource... I'm sure a huge amount of work went into them... In fact, I liked them SO much, I bought not only the original book from NARTS, but all of the subsequent "Supplements" as well... (there were several years worth of supplements published sequentially every year after the book was released, with the same basic information format, but covering different rockets or subjects that didn't make the original printing of the book... these are available from NARTS as well... in softcover format).

Later and good luck! OL JR

thobin said:

Its more of a not worth $50, I'm with you its just not all THAT nice of a kit. Now if the book is as cool as you say it is, that would be worth $50.

TA

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Oh, yeah, I get what you're saying... I wasn't saying you were poor or cheap or whatever... not my intention...

I'm the same way... there are a LOT of things I just wouldn't be willing to pay $50 bucks for... Not a "right" or "wrong" issue, just a "I'm not spending that much money on THAT" issue; maybe I'm cheap, I dunno... wouldn't be the first time... and that's not a value judgement on others who might jump at spending $50 on the same thing...

Though of course I reserve the right to thumb my nose at some of the rediculous prices some folks seem to be shelling out on Fleabay for some REALLY substandard stuff... all that "a fool and his money are soon parted" kinda thing, but of course, it's their money and they can *waste* it as they see fit...

Yeah, I think you'd like ROTW... that's one thing that is WELL worth the money, and would be worth it at twice the price IMHO... (But not some of the *stupid* Fleabay prices I've seen... not unless I won the lottery and was feeling particularly stupid on day... LOL Or if it was available NOWHERE ELSE at ANY price! (which is not the case)

Later! OL JR

PeterAlway said:

Oh, I don't feel jabbed at. To the contrary, quite pleased you mentioned the book at all. But when I have students paying $130 for a softcover textbook with a similar page count, I can't consider $30 expensive.

Peter Alway

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Yep... different mindset... Textbook prices suck... I learned that much when my sister was in college and I'd take her textbook shopping... YIKES!!!

I buy 95% of my "hobby" (primarily spaceflight) books from "Half Price Books"... We usually have a pretty good selection... one of the benefits of having Johnson Space Center only 65 miles from my back door, and there being a HPB only about a mile from the center... The rest are usually Amazon procurements... rarely do I buy a "new" book from other sources... though I did splurge a few years ago on "Nuclear Weapons of the United States" and a few other titles now residing on my bookshelf from the National Atomic Museum in Albuquerque, New Mexico... along with those amazing Peter Kuran atomic testing DVD's... And, yeah, some of the incredible stuff from "Spacecraft Films"...

I don't buy junk... I'm still rather PO'd at myself for buying "Rocket Men" by Craig Nelson... that book just SUCKED!!! GLARING errors and a lot of STUPID ones at that... (Apollo 6 lifted off, had an F-1 engine quit, flipped over alarmingly and flew back toward the ground at amazing speed, somehow righted itself, and managed to stagger on to orbit, but the S-IVB wouldn't reignite..." That's just LAZY research or non-existent fact-checking... The thing lifted off normally and flew normally on the first stage, staged, and the second stage lit up and took off... one of the J-2's suffered an engine failure (fire sensor detected the engine was on fire IIRC... ) but due to crossed wires, the controls ordered the shutdown of the wrong engine, so now it's only flying on 3 J-2's with a badly-off-center thrust imbalance... the SECOND stage and stack THEN turned almost straight back down toward Earth (though it was at a high altitude by this point, virtually invisible from the ground) before righting itself and managing to fly on to second stage burnout, whereupon it staged and the S-IVB inserted itself into orbit, but the J-2 wouldn't restart for the TLI burn due to the ignitor lines burning through, which, IIRC, was the cause of the shutdown on the S-II stage-- the lines burned through and allowed combustion gases to backfeed out the burned through line, essentially "catching the engine on fire". With the line burned through, the S-IVB's third stage J-2 couldn't reignite, since the burned through line couldn't carry the ignitor's gases into the engine to light it.

As a farmer, I used to get about 4-5 "free" ag-magazines every month... from "Cotton Farmer" and "Cotton Farming" to "Progressive Farmer" and "MidSouth Farm Press"... I got them for free because i was buying seed and fertilizer and chemicals on the farm, and the ag companies sold those purchaser lists to the magazine companies for circulation of free copies... after all, they need to get all those FULL PAGE or DUAL PAGE full-color fancy-schmancy advertisements out in front of every farmer they possibly can... which was ok... after all, it was paying for me to get the magazing for free... but when they turned, during the late 80's and early 90's into overt "yellow dog" journalism, and only printed stories that played up their advertisers' products and just TOTALLY backed the "get big or get out" mindset (which of course makes their advertisers rich) I found little content worth reading... then when they started attacking anyone who disagreed with this mindset or its various policy-driven implementations as some kind of wild-eyed Luddite extremists, I got sick of it... wouldn't line a birdcage with it... I was tossing them in the trash, so I wrote and asked them to take me off their subscriber lists... no sense wasting all that glossy high-quality magazine paper and postage just to toss it without reading it (other than for a laugh, if that). There is only ONE farm magazine I will actually PAY for... "Farm Show" magazine, written mostly by reader contributions... NO advertising whatsoever... it's about $30 a year and printed bi-monthly on newspaper "rag sheet" newsprint, but the CONTENT is phenomenal...

ANYWAY, point is, ROTW is one of those things I'd be willing to pay twice the asking price for... it's that good...
Later! OL JR

I finished the fins and got them glued on, and once again I get building and forget to take pictures. :bangpan: The bottom half of the fin is balsa and the fin tab is balsa wrapped in paper. The root edge is 1/16 basswood as well as the interior parts of the frame. I just used white glue to glue card stock skin on, and once it was all dry I flooded the paper with CA. So far the fins are very stiff and have good clean sharp lines. I'm working on the baffle now, I'm going to do the double half moon bulkheads and vent holes set up. I'll also use an eye bolt to hang my Kevlar shock cord from. On to more building.

TA

What an outstanding looking build,you have done an incredible job.Really like how you built the tower and capsule.Heck what am I saying,incredible fins also.:wink:

Looks awesome so far. I could never have the patience to build something like that. What do have planned motor-wise for this thing?
It was nice meeting you, ( though only briefly) at the UROC meeting a few weeks ago.

Alex

Aksrockets said:

Looks awesome so far. I could never have the patience to build something like that. What do have planned motor-wise for this thing?
Alex

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D12-3 Is probably all that will ever go it it. In fact I didn't even put an E size motor mount in it, I can always slap a RMS in it and go nuts.


TA

Very nice work there.....

Looking very nice!!!!
Super work!