What did you do rocket wise today?

cherokeej said:

There's a low altitude site just a couple of miles up highway 4 from the entrance to Snow Ranch. The SAS also uses the 4000 foot emergency helo pad on highway 88, and their high altitude site, on Peddler Hill, also up highway 88. Peddler Hill is a very nice observing site. Dark sky.

But for the most part, the Bruce Orvis scope will be use at public events, like the SAS "Sky Tours," held monthly in a parking lot at Delta College, and another monthly public party, held at Oak Grove Park. (In the past, we've had a number of wheelchair bound guests at the Sky Tours event that were unable to enjoy some of the larger aperture instruments, and our mirror guru and resident telescope making expert decided to do something about that, by putting the eyepiece and focuser at a fixed height, thru the center of one of the altitude bearings. Bingo... Larger aperture, wheelchair accessible.)

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Nice! I know the Peddler Hill site. Where the old Iron Mountain Lodge was. Good site.

Rex R said:

Loc nose cones are notoriously hard to get paint to stick to them...well I found something else that doesn't stick, ca doesn't stick them either. needed a form to do some ca work on an airframe, put some ca on the end of the tube then shoved the nose cone in place. an hour later I pulled the cone, still need to do some more sanding of the inside of the tube.
Rex

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I've found that lightly sanding in a circular motion with 800 grit roughens them up enough for paint/primer to stick. Can vouch that CA has a hard time as well. The BSI 5 min epoxy mix seems to go really well though,.

Came home from work to a large box from Wisconsin sitting in my front porch...






Setting it up like that quickly makes me realize that this going to be a large bird!

Got my first winter build project lined up!

And I just passed the NAR L2 test at the October WAC meeting. Now to fly my L2 flight at the Tri cities launch next week.

Some SWEET stuff coming out of Wisconsin these days!!!


From the Ether...

Today was an epic rocket construction day. My 5 year old daughter Sophia made her first fin fillets. I did the taping & epoxy mixing, but she did the rest. She watched me do my rocket, then blobbed all the epoxy in place on hers. She then asked for the little piece of tubing I used to smooth them out & set the shape. "Daddy, I want to do the hard part too with that tube." She aced it.

SO. AWESOME.



That's it for the external fillets on my kids' Formula 38s and my Mouse 38. We'll get going on the internal fillets next. There sure isn't much room between the 38mm body tube & the 29mm motor mount. I might have to switch away from the Proline 4500 and use something more runny. We'll see.

Started painting my PML Endeavor. Fluorescent pink and black. Should break it in at next weekend's club launch.

Printed skins and cut fins for an Estes X-Ray clone. Upscaled slightly, BT-50 body tube and BT-55 payload section. Should get it in the air on Saturday.

Not strictly rocket-related, but I ordered some more parts for a rotary 4th axis to hang off the front of my CNC router.

put some CWF on the internal spirals of a set of King Kraken fin tubes

Went and helped wrangle cats......errr Cub Scout build night.

Internal fillets on 38mm rockets with 29mm motor mounts. Yeah. That's not a lot of room in there. I used some BSI 15 minute epoxy & a tool I made out of safety wire...I think spraying foam in there would have been easier & cleaner. A syringe with a tube on the end might have worked too. The fillets are in there, but they're not awesome. I'll just slop some extra Proline in there when I put on the rear centering ring. Good enough!

EDIT: My son said he wants red flames over black on his Formula 38. Soooooo, I guess now I'm going to paint flames.

GrouchoDuke said:

Internal fillets on 38mm rockets with 29mm motor mounts. Yeah. That's not a lot of room in there. I used some BSI 15 minute epoxy & a tool I made out of safety wire...I think spraying foam in there would have been easier & cleaner. A syringe with a tube on the end might have worked too. The fillets are in there, but they're not awesome. I'll just slop some extra Proline in there when I put on the rear centering ring. Good enough!

EDIT: My son said he wants red flames over black on his Formula 38. Soooooo, I guess now I'm going to paint flames.
View attachment 329520 View attachment 329521

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Try injecting your fillets next time. Drill a syringe-sized hole near the forward end of the fin, but not so big that it can't be covered by an external fillet. Inject and let it flow to distribute.

I've found trying to inject from the aft end with a tube on a syringe is difficult because the epoxy doesn't really want to flow in a small tube that kind of distance, but I was trying to use silicone R/C fuel tubing. Maybe there's something better.

edit: And I definitely wouldn't use ProLine internally; it doesn't flow well at all. Some 30 minute BSI is great for internals.

I'm jealous of your flame work. Your kids' rockets are going to be friggen sweet.

GrouchoDuke said:

Internal fillets on 38mm rockets with 29mm motor mounts. Yeah. That's not a lot of room in there. I used some BSI 15 minute epoxy & a tool I made out of safety wire...I think spraying foam in there would have been easier & cleaner. A syringe with a tube on the end might have worked too. The fillets are in there, but they're not awesome.

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I just finished building the exact same rocket, and 30 minute BSI did the trick for internal fillets: it flowed long enough to make it all the way from the rear of the fin to the front centering ring.

GrouchoDuke said:

EDIT: My son said he wants red flames over black on his Formula 38. Soooooo, I guess now I'm going to paint flames.
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Those look awesome.
Are you ordering stickers (if so where), or can you create that level of artwork with your own hand?

I suck at paintwork, just a coat of clear for my f38.

a

Yeah, I might get a syringe to put some more epoxy in there. It looks like they’re pretty good though for the loads they’ll see.

The flames were some some Adobe Illustrator work I did on some flames I lifted from online. I’ll use our Silhouette Cameo 3 vinyl cutter to cut a paint mask of the Illustrator file I made. Once that’s done, it’s just rattle can work.

GrouchoDuke said:

Internal fillets on 38mm rockets with 29mm motor mounts. Yeah. That's not a lot of room in there. I used some BSI 15 minute epoxy & a tool I made out of safety wire...I think spraying foam in there would have been easier & cleaner. A syringe with a tube on the end might have worked too. The fillets are in there, but they're not awesome. I'll just slop some extra Proline in there when I put on the rear centering ring. Good enough!

EDIT: My son said he wants red flames over black on his Formula 38. Soooooo, I guess now I'm going to paint flames.
View attachment 329520 View attachment 329521

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Looks amazing!

I've never had the courage to do any kind of flame painting... I'll stick with plain old stripes.

Well, I haven’t painted yet. We’ll see how it turns out!

LithosphereRocketry said:

Looks amazing!

I've never had the courage to do any kind of flame painting... I'll stick with plain old stripes.

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It's really not as hard as it sounds.

I cover the area with masking tape (or masking film), draw the flame, and free hand it with an exacto. No one can tell you "you messed up that flame cut!" cuz you're the only one that knows what you drew! If anything, they're easier than perfectly straight stripes lol.

Here was my first attempt: Broncbuster II

Made up this graphic for an information page on egglofting rockets.

Part of something I'll announce soon.

Wrapped my Estes Mercury Redstone with a set of Groen wraps printed on self adhesive label paper, turned out looking pretty good as soon as its ready the whole thing will get clear coated with a flat clear coat.

I stopped by the local HOBBY LOBBY today after work. I was NOT planning on purchasing any rocketry stuff, but I changed my mind when I saw this.

While I am not really "big"on scale projects, I have always liked the Nike Smoke sounding rocket. AND seeing that it was marked down from an original $21.99USD to $13.19, and THEN to $7.19, well, what else could I do? :wink:

Slopped some more love on the inner fillet areas and installed the rear centering ring & motor retainer on the Mouse 38 and the kids' Formula 38s.

I talked with the kids today and my daughter suggested that we wait on painting them until we fly them. "Daddy, we should test fly them first before we paint them so if we have to change them it won't mess up the paint."

Yesterday I received my LOC Mega Magg. I only got as far as unboxing it. It's big!!! It's a custom version with a 98mm MMT and 3 centering rings. No problem at all with custom orders. LOC is very accommodating. Thanks Dave!

Ordered vinyl for my 5.5 BBII project this winter. Other than that I haven't had the time to do a darn thing for rockets since getting home from my last launch nearly a month ago.

Unpacked and installed Chris Bender's nosecone GPS mount kit, as per here:
https://www.rocketryforum.com/showt...ized-EF-sleds-available&p=1704713#post1704713

Everything fit perfectly into my Formula 38, and looks great.
Now waiting on EggFinder mini GPS to ship. Hopefully, it will get here in time for 10/14 launch.

a

GrouchoDuke said:

Well, I haven’t painted yet. We’ll see how it turns out!

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Groucho
Check out the advice in this thread

https://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?t=142642

Tom

I attended Midland Rocketry, and flew my Amazon and Crossfire for the second time.

First flight of the Amazon was a bit of a disaster, and it did what it threatened to do last time on a B4-4 and Lawn-darted. Last time there was motor blow through on the Klima but this time there was no excuse. B4-4s now banned from this rocket. The nose cone crushed into the body tube, but otherwise no significant damage and it flew again twice on a C6-3 very nicely. When I got home I cut 5mm off the crushed end of the tube and it's now good as new.

Crossfire once again flew beautifully all day. There we a group of Scouts flying rockets on A8-3s, and mine performed very similarly to theirs on the same engine. When it next took off on a C6-5 the were gasps of admiration and jealousy! Initially it went out of sight, but I caught a glimpse of it on its way down before losing it again. It drifted really far, much further than I thought it did, proving the adage that however far you think it went, go further. Final flight on a B4-4 using left overs now banned from the Amazon was just about ideal. Beginning to collect a few battle scars now!

Last flight of the day was another C6-3 for the Amazon and was a certification flight for the UKRA Model Achievement Program level 1. Aced! Not exactly onerous - prep and fly a rocket. I could have qualified on my second ever flight had I known to ask. Indeed the Crossfire qualifies for level 2.0 - build, prep and fly a rocket. Where it gets interesting is the additional task required for level 2, something like build a minimum diameter rocket, a staged rocket, perform glide recovery or something similar. Level 3 is design, build, prep and launch, again with two optional tasks. 5 more tasks total and limited to one per flying day, so looking at level 3 in around March.

I'll probably get L1 before then!

Other things of note - my black labrador Holly made friends with a chocolate labrador called Lottie at the launch event and worked together to snaffle someone's pork pie whilst I was browsing the shop. I came away with an Estes Fletcher on sale which I will make MD. Unfortunately the body tubes are damaged, but I was planning an order anyway and adding some BT20 to it isn't a big deal. My flatmate bought a Big Daddy for his first rocket which looks really cool.

I've got some purchases lined up -
- BT20 for the Fletcher.
- Pro24 1 grain, rear closure and ProDat38. This for my Cosmic Interceptor.
- Altimeter. Wondering whether to go JL Altimeter Two, or try and get hold of a Three which doesn't appear to be easily available in the UK and will need to be ordered internationally. I like the Three's Bluetooth feature. Advice?

afadeev said:

Unpacked and installed Chris Bender's nosecone GPS mount kit, as per here:
https://www.rocketryforum.com/showt...ized-EF-sleds-available&p=1704713#post1704713

Everything fit perfectly into my Formula 38, and looks great.
Now waiting on EggFinder mini GPS to ship. Hopefully, it will get here in time for 10/14 launch.

a

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Glad you like it.

Just occasionally flipping through my L2 test notes as I cross my fingers that the next club launch won't be scrubbed for weather....

Started on my Estes Shuttle. Should be a nice change of pace from my last few projects.