What did you do rocket wise today?

Glassed the Aft Section of the Airframe for the Tykon 10 Annihilator with 1 Layer of 1.5oz..
I made all my Markings first so that I know where to drill for my Steering Detail Thingy, and have the Lines visible for making my Epoxy Rivet Holes.
I'm loving this Fiberglass! Gonna' order a whole bunch! Also got to order a small Vacuum to dedicate to Workbench Sanitation/Safety Duty.:wink:
Thanks again Jerome99K for turning me onto this stuff! You've created a Monster!







No more Papering Body Tubes!!!

TopRamen said:

Glassed the Aft Section of the Airframe for the Tykon 10 Annihilator with 1 Layer of 1.5oz..
I made all my Markings first so that I know where to drill for my Steering Detail Thingy, and have the Lines visible for making my Epoxy Rivet Holes.
I'm loving this Fiberglass! Gonna' order a whole bunch! Also got to order a small Vacuum to dedicate to Workbench Sanitation/Safety Duty.:wink:
Thanks again Jerome99K for turning me onto this stuff! You've created a Monster!

View attachment 188099



No more Papering Body Tubes!!!

Click to expand...

Awesome! It doesn't take much to greatly enhance the strength and durability of LPR/MPR builds. As you have discovered, light weight FG cloth like .75oz. & 1.5oz is all you need for cardboard and balsa. Completely covers BT spirals and wood grain too!

If you have a local hobby shop in town, they might carry this in the r/c plane section. Back when planes were mostly balsa we used this cloth to strengthen where the wing halves joined using polyester resin.

I just started buying the lightweight FG cloth from hobbyking.com They are now stocking it in their U.S. west coast warehouse. Maybe soon in their new U.S. east coast branch.

The 18g/m2 is equivalent to the .75oz. https://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__63464__Glass_Fiber_Cloth_450x1000mm_18g_m2_Super_Thin_US_Warehouse_.html

The 48g/m2 is equivalent to the 1.5oz. https://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__63469__Glass_Fiber_Cloth_450x1000mm_48g_m2_Ultra_Thin_US_Warehouse_.html


They even carry smaller bottles of 20 min finishing epoxy. https://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__16443__Finish_Cure_20_Min_Epoxy_Glue_4_5_oz_US_Warehouse_.html

This small bottle goes a long way on smaller rockets, but I have since stepped up to using more industrial and cost effective U.S. Composites epoxy.


Cheers!

Jerome

Spoke with a fellow at the parks department, and sent a very detailed email to the Park Superintendent about using some undeveloped park land (floodplain) for monthly club low/mid power launches. There is some ambiguity in the local ordinances around model rockets, so it comes down to his interpretation of the rules. So far everyone, even those I haven't agreed with, have been quite reasonable, so I am cautiously optimistic we can at least get a constructive dialog going.

This would be timely as our low/mid power field headed toward urban sprawl extinction in the near term. Being in a floodplain it would be hard to see this field going a similar route, and since we are in a historic drought flooding isn't really a concern either in the near term.

I'm asking for good thoughts from my rocket brothers on this effort.

Cl(VII) said:

Spoke with a fellow at the parks department, and sent a very detailed email to the Park Superintendent about using some undeveloped park land (floodplain) for monthly club low/mid power launches. There is some ambiguity in the local ordinances around model rockets, so it comes down to his interpretation of the rules. So far everyone, even those I haven't agreed with, have been quite reasonable, so I am cautiously optimistic we can at least get a constructive dialog going.

This would be timely as our low/mid power field headed toward urban sprawl extinction in the near term. Being in a floodplain it would be hard to see this field going a similar route, and since we are in a historic drought flooding isn't really a concern either in the near term.

I'm asking for good thoughts from my rocket brothers on this effort.

Click to expand...

YES !!! As rocket wise activities go, this is a very good one.

<edit> I cleaned some igniter clips this morning.

Finished up the Arreaux with my son. His first mid power build, he did most of the construction, sanding, and decal work. I showed him the first of everything and he did the rest with my supervision. He picked out the colors, too. Not bad for an 8 year old! First flight upcoming at MWP...

Dry fitted my Fins and MMT.
The Fiberglass is easy to drill on the Press, and makes it easy to get a perfect fit for the Steering Detail Thingies.
I think that from now on all my Rockets are going to get Glassed, as it seems to simplify Assembly exponentially.

CzTeacherMan said:

Finished up the Arreaux with my son. His first mid power build, he did most of the construction, sanding, and decal work. I showed him the first of everything and he did the rest with my supervision. He picked out the colors, too. Not bad for an 8 year old! First flight upcoming at MWP...

Click to expand...

Fantastic. Congratulate the lad for a fine rocket.

CzTeacherMan said:

Finished up the Arreaux with my son. His first mid power build, he did most of the construction, sanding, and decal work. I showed him the first of everything and he did the rest with my supervision. He picked out the colors, too. Not bad for an 8 year old! First flight upcoming at MWP...

Click to expand...

I like the colors- what engine are you going to fly it on first?

TopRamen said:

Dry fitted my Fins and MMT.
The Fiberglass is easy to drill on the Press, and makes it easy to get a perfect fit for the Steering Detail Thingies.
I think that from now on all my Rockets are going to get Glassed, as it seems to simplify Assembly exponentially.

View attachment 188121

View attachment 188122

Click to expand...

Looking nice! About how much weight did that fiberglass add to the rocket? I might have to try that sometime...

Nate

nute said:

Looking nice! About how much weight did that fiberglass add to the rocket? I might have to try that sometime...

Nate

Click to expand...

Thanks.

I did'nt weigh it before. The Rocket so far weighs 11oz. sitting on the Scale. I'm going to glass the Front Set of Fins, as I made them from fairly thin Balsa, papered already with 110# Cardstock. I'll weigh the Fins "Before and After" when I get to that part. The Rear Fins are Basswood, so they really don't need glassing.

Ah, and I see all my Rockets in a new light now, as if I've had a "Fiberglass Revolation".
It is quite fun to play with and see what results you get.
I would recommend trying it! It's going to open so many new Doors for me as a Builder. I can't wait to glass some small Estes 18mm Rocket like one of my Crossfires and throw a D21 in there. Would'nt take all of 20 minutes to glass up a small thing like that.
John Coker has some great How To Videos and I'm anxious to try some of his Techniques, like using the Teflon Tape Covered Coupler Plugs in the ends of the Body Tube.

I was on fire today...rocketry-wise.

Cut out a couple of av-bay switch bands from a length of 3" body tube I bought last Saturday at October Skies.

Dug out a LOC special edition October Skies rocket kit that I bought back in 2010 at October Skies and decided to use it as a test bed for tip to tip fiberglassing and dual deploy. Re-directed a kevlar y-harness to this build and partially assembled the 29mm motor mount (top two centering rings, y-harness). Sanded fin slots to fit and sanded the fins.

Epoxy'd switch bands on to av-bays and permanently bonded LOC Stiffy av-bay insert into one of them.

Cut out and sanded a 7"x3"x1/4" ply electronics sled for the 4" diameter av-bay I'm planning to use in a large tube-fin rocket.

Ordered some 6" long cotton tipped swabs from Amazon that I will use to apply CA down inside the Goblin's body tube to finish the area where the nose cone shoulder slides in. I like a predictable/consistent deployment of the nose cone and "case-hardening the interior of the body tube really helps.

Yes, I must suffer from RADD (Rocketry Attention Deficit Disorder) and get more done by working on projects in parallel. They eventually all come together.

djs said:

I like the colors- what engine are you going to fly it on first?

Click to expand...

F23-7FJ. Plan is to launch again on Sunday using a G76-10G

When it stopped raining for long enough, I went outside and did some light sanding on the Glass I did yesterday.
Also did my first Glassing of a Set of Fins. One side anyhow. I will let them sit under the Stack of Books and 40lbs. of Weights overnight.
I had a look at them after they had sat for about 6 Hours, and could see through the Wax Paper that I had succeeded in getting good coverage with no Air Bubbles or any imperfections.
The interesting thing to me was that the Glass/Epoxy had saturated the Paper layer and made the Paper become transparent to the point that you can hardly tell that there was Paper there to begin with.
Again, I have to state that I was surprised at how easy it was to use the Fiberglass for this, and encourage anyone who has been intimidated by Fiberglassing like I used to be to give it a try.

Renewed NAR memberships for Daughter and I

Glassed the other side of the Fin Set I'm working on.
I realized that I forgot to weigh them before I started, but oh well. Maybe next time.
I have a few more sets of miscellaneous Fins sitting around that I am going to use to practice Glassing, so I'll start another set tomorrow after I get this current Set out from under the Books and Weights. Takes up half my Bench waiting for these things to cure up.
I'm going to go get some Granite Slabs to use for this. I live in Vermont, real close to the Rock Of Ages Quarries and flat Slabs of Granite can be found for Free. Two towns over, in Graniteville, there are spots on the Sides of the Roads where there are just Piles of it dumped down over the Embankments. Some polished, some rough cut. If you look around you can usually find a few nice Slabs, and all I need for doing MPR Sized Fins will be a couple of polished Surface Slabs, about 1.5ft. by 2ft., say maybe an inch and a half thick each.
Then I can just slide the whole mess under the Couch to Cure, and store the Slabs there when I'm not using them.

I test fit the parts from a Rocketry Warehouse 38 Special rocket kit. Nice kit!

Got the final fillets done on the 38 special, and sanded the fin slots on my Painkiller 3. Now I'm working on a Wildman order. So many options, so little funding

Well i just bought a Excel Plus from Binder Design, time to build for Lvl 2

Turned a coupler into an av-bay for my latest project. Let's just call it "OSXP" for now.

Also cut a payload bay that's 3" longer than the original that came in the kit. Overall length went from 39" to 42".
Cut, shaped, and epoxy'd some of Captain Low-N-Slow's patented rail button blocks to OSXP's 29mm motor mount. They provide a much larger target for drilling holes for the rail buttons.
CA'd the inside end of the body tube and both ends of the payload bay tube for OSXP. I ordered some long handled cotton swabs from Amazon and they are excellent for this sort of thing. Paid $3 for 100 of the little buggers and with Prime there is no charge for shipping.

More to come tomorrow.

Got this in the mail Yesterday, Who else got $5 from Ted Cochran?

Cut away the Excess FG from this Set of Fins, which weighed 2.3oz. with one side of FG done, and came in at 2.7oz. complete, leading me to believe/conclude that in this instance the Glassing added approximately 0.8oz.
Had the Fins not already been Papered with 110# Cardstock they would obviously be lighter, but for the Model I'm building right now, they are still plenty lightweight. Much lighter than when I simply use Basswood, and stronger/thinner too!
They are indeed quite rigid.
They still need to be finish sanded, but that has to occur outdoors and it is raining right now, so maybe later.

Thanks again Jerome!

CzTeacherMan said:

Finished up the Arreaux with my son. His first mid power build, he did most of the construction, sanding, and decal work. I showed him the first of everything and he did the rest with my supervision. He picked out the colors, too. Not bad for an 8 year old! First flight upcoming at MWP...

Click to expand...

Awesome! and it looks nice as well. My kids' rockets look like a whirlwind of paint.

Sprayed the last coats of primer on my Talon. I will sand it with 400 grit sandpaper latter today and get it ready for paint that I plan to do tomorrow.

First coat of color then wait to put the red on.

I continue to hack away at the hideous fillets on my ancient Cluster-R Sergeant

I'm also at the filling and sanding phase on the new Estes Cobra kit. Phew! So many fiddly bits and crannies! Sanding this one is a PITA!

Got all my Holes drilled for the Epoxy Rivets and am doing my final fitting of my Parts. Going to go start Epoxying things together now.
This is the part where I start to get all excited!!!

Titebond has just started too show in the UK. Spent a few mins hunting for the best price and order this today

https://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&alt=web&id=400706973032

Should keep me going

Had enough time to do the fins. I'm going to flame the nosecone tomorrow.

Getmore said:

Had enough time to do the fins. I'm going to flame the nosecone tomorrow.

Click to expand...

That's lookin' pretty Bada$$!!!
That long Tail Cone is sweet!

Started work on the Painkiller 3 Av Bay, Got the U bolts and all thread installed. Next is charge wells and terminal blocks!