What did you do rocket wise today?

Finished building the Estes Vagabond just before my wife returned back home from a job assignment in Wabasha Minnesota for 2 weeks.
The rocket is built completely stock except for a longer elastic shock cord of about 3 yards. The paint is Rust-oleum metallic aluminum and Rust-oleum semi-gloss black over white primer. I sprayed Krylon acrylic gloss clearcoat just before applying decals and a final clearcoat after the decals. CWF the fins and BT and rounded leading fin edges. Turned out to be my best finish job which paid off for all the prime/sanding.
This is currently my biggest rocket build and now my favorite.

I brought a 4" section of PML airframe to work, the payload section to my Black Dahlia rebuild, in hopes of putting it on the flat wheel grinder to square up the ends of the tube. Fit to the nosecone and the switch band are off just enough to make me uncomfortable about making a "precision" looking vehicle.

Received my order from Estes the other day, I ordered a Scion and a Sahara, box came with 2 Sahara's in it. Emailed Estes that day (the 23rd) but haven't heard from them.........

I ordered some LED parts for WarnerR and wet sanded to nosecones for a second coat of Future .

Kenny

Finished painting yesterday. Clear coated today. Tomorrow av-bay. Saturday first flight.

Started work on the Arreaux I bought on Saturday at Hub Hobby in Little Canada, MN. What a store! Scored a bunch of F40 reloads with no Hazmat fee. Best hobby shop I have ever been in!

Mike

terryg said:

Flew my upscale "Solar Flare" on an K695 Redline at NARAM 57.

https://www.naramlive.com/naramlive-2015/naramlive/03sunday/day/imgpages/image031.html

https://www.naramlive.com/naramlive-2015/naramlive/03sunday/day/imgpages/image037.html

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Oh, that's gorgeous!

Krusty

JERRYR708 said:

View attachment 268526
Finished building the Estes Vagabond just before my wife returned back home from a job assignment in Wabasha Minnesota for 2 weeks.
The rocket is built completely stock except for a longer elastic shock cord of about 3 yards. The paint is Rust-oleum metallic aluminum and Rust-oleum semi-gloss black over white primer. I sprayed Krylon acrylic gloss clearcoat just before applying decals and a final clearcoat after the decals. CWF the fins and BT and rounded leading fin edges. Turned out to be my best finish job which paid off for all the prime/sanding.
This is currently my biggest rocket build and now my favorite.

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I've started building mine now I've built up the fins and have filled the nose cone. Too much work on at the moment to get any more done before the weekend.

Krusty

- Organized my 3 ongoing projects (Estes V2, TLP FLAIL, and a scratch scale of the MIM-23B Improved HAWK), and made todo lists for each
- Glued the tail section and compartment ring on FLAIL
- Primed nosecones of V2 and FLAIL
- Redesigned fin can of HAWK and got the tail transition shape from Open Rocket

krusty said:

I've started building mine now I've built up the fins and have filled the nose cone. Too much work on at the moment to get any more done before the weekend.

Krusty

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The nose cone on mine had a seam on each side that needed filling. I masked the nose cone along the left and right side of the seam, leaving about 1/16 of an inch seam to fill with sandable primer. After I sprayed several coats of primer, I peeled away the tape, sanded the primer seam and was ready for paint.

I couldn't find Kevlar cord anywhere, so I just bought a longer elastic cord for mine. Never had a failure yet with proper amount of wadding, so I just keep using what works for me.

For the parachute, I just bought the solid black premium quality plastic tablecover from .99 cent store that will match nicely and is really nice material.

What do you plan to do on your build and what colors do you have in mind?

JERRYR708 said:

The nose cone on mine had a seam on each side that needed filling. I masked the nose cone along the left and right side of the seam, leaving about 1/16 of an inch seam to fill with sandable primer. After I sprayed several coats of primer, I peeled away the tape, sanded the primer seam and was ready for paint.

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I use Tamiya Basic Putty - https://www.resinaddict.com/blog/2011/06/materials-tamiya-putty-basic-type/ (randomly selected blog post that describes how it works!) My nose cone seems to have been molded slightly misaligned - just a few thou, but enough that you can see it where the seam reaches the shoulder & the flash had been removed in such a way as to leave divots - that's all been fixed. If you haven't used the Tamiya putty before (or similar products) it's fantastic. Put it on with your finger and sand it off 10 minutes later

I also use it for filling the grain in the fins. Haven't got that far yet. Prob. over the weekend.

JERRYR708 said:

I couldn't find Kevlar cord anywhere, so I just bought a longer elastic cord for mine. Never had a failure yet with proper amount of wadding, so I just keep using what works for me.

For the parachute, I just bought the solid black premium quality plastic tablecover from .99 cent store that will match nicely and is really nice material.

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I've got a good stock of Kevlar (bought it from Emma Kites on ebay) and some light-weight parachord that I use. Not sure about parachute yet - will probably just mix & match as I go. I have quite a few rip-stop parachutes that I move from rocket to rocket.

JERRYR708 said:

What do you plan to do on your build and what colors do you have in mind?

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Hmm... I do like the two-tone colour schemes! I may go for a fluorescent orange fin can and a black top.... but it's still early days yet. Ask me again once I'm closer to finished

Krusty

Finished the Asteroid Hunter today... Whew it was a time consuming little kit.

Disassembled a 4" avionics package I had been working on for a while. I determined it got way too heavy from being over-built. From the parts I was able to outfit two rockets with complete avionics packaging and wiring. I also brought in my booster section of Black Dahlia to run it on the grinding wheel to square up the open end of the assembly.

Sanded V2 and FLAIL. Printed tailcone for HAWK. Primed FLAIL nose cone again. Started painting white section of V2.

T34zac said:

Finished painting yesterday. Clear coated today. Tomorrow av-bay. Saturday first flight.

View attachment 268557

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And now the av-bay: View attachment 268656

Only a raven 3 in this one. 7.4v li-po battery for power.

Did a continuity test and everything is working as planned.

Now I just need to get terminal blocks on the bulkheads and then this thing will be flyable.

Saturday's flight plan will include two flights. First flight will be a CTI I165 C-star 54mm 1 grain, 4,200' expected. Second flight will be a Animal by Cesaroni K665 Black Bear 54mm 4 grain, 8,900' expected.

Wayco said:

Helped Sharon with her ground test on the 5" Super Jart. 1 gram got the N/C off and about 10 ft. down the rug, but the 2.8 gram load made me jump! We might have overestimated what it would take to get the drogue out. Redid it with 1.9 grams and still got a pretty hot deployment, but I think she is gonna leave it at that. She prepped it for launch, and also got her 4" Jimbo jart ready, then decided that the 54mm Interceptor needed to go too. So she's got 16 rockets to my 15, and they are all packed up for Hellfire.

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What motor does she want to do in the Super Jart ? Did she build it as a 75 or a 54mm ?

16 rockets to your 15..she is the 'one upper' !

Kenny

T34zac said:

Only a raven 3 in this one. 7.4v li-po battery for power.

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Way too big of a battery there. You could fry the output FET's. Read on this forum comments from Adrian A. the owner of Featherweight. He has been consistent in recommending only the smallest single-cell LiPo you can find for powering the Raven (see pics of Perch for typical battery).

Cut a couple rocket stands on my mill.

Got three quarters of the way through my Leviathan build... and decided to make it dual deploy.

dixontj93060 said:

Way too big of a battery there. You could fry the output FET's. Read on this forum comments from Adrian A. the owner of Featherweight. He has been consistent in recommending only the smallest single-cell LiPo you can find for powering the Raven (see pics of Perch for typical battery).

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I've never had an issue using this battery with the Raven. IIRC the Raven can take an input voltage of up to 16 volts. And I don't think the 7.4 li-po comes close to that even with its peak voltage. It's also a low discharge battery. I don't have the exact C rating right now, but I don't think it's high as this one was intended for powering small electronic devices such as this.

Started in on a Solar Warrior (Estes Kit) build today. Going to leave the engine block out for E's and F's.

KenRico said:

What motor does she want to do in the Super Jart ? Did she build it as a 75 or a 54mm ?

16 rockets to your 15..she is the 'one upper' !

Kenny

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She didn't build it, it's one of Juan's, she just finished the avbay and recovery this week. I built a 75mm K510 for my Mongoose and flew it on that L395 instead. (Big mistake) So the "Super Jart's" first flight will be at Hellfire on a CTI K510 Classic.

ChrisAttebery said:

Cut a couple rocket stands on my mill.

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Very nice work on the stands. I am looking at simple PVC stands for my birds.

After dismantling an avionics package that was built like a tank, I pulled together some of the components to create a lighter weight version of the package with a single altimeter (instead of two), and 9V battery... pretty much a standard configuration. I will get some pics closer to assembly. The goal here, is to build an avionics group that is not assembled with epoxy. Albeit a lighter option, it is just not very "engineer-like."

ChrisAttebery said:

Cut a couple rocket stands on my mill.

View attachment 268671

View attachment 268672

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I think I'll have to steal your design!

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Last night, I finished sanding the spiral groove filler on my Leviathan (I hadn't appreciated how big it was before that), pulled the painting masks off my upscale Teros and from my Drifter clone. I broke the end 1/2" off of one the fricken' Drifter fins by tugging too hard on the low-tack masking tape. BMS used some soft, delicate balsa on that kit. I may go back and sand all three fins down, paper them, and repaint them. Otherwise, I'm certain it'll break on landing, even in grass! Oh, and I finished painting my EAC Firecat clone. Now I have to decide whether I build my PSII Sahara next or move into laying out a BT-70 size upscale of the Firecat (I've already got the cone from Sandman)...

Broke down and ordered a Punisher.

My Gypsy said:

Broke down and ordered a Punisher.

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I'm going to fly mine for the first time this weekend. Looking at a "low altitude" (4,200'+) on a one grain 54mm for its first flight. Then a high altitude flight on a 4 grain K

I just put the decals on my Punisher (thanks Mark!) And shot some future.

Then sanded WeFly2 saucer guts and he actually came to visit with his CoolFin Rocket.

Also tested the LEDs we are setting up WarnerR with for his NiteFyr type payload.

Kenny