What did you do rocket wise today?

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No launch today, so finished up painting the Mach One Rocketry Portia. I'll post photos on the build thread tomorrow. It came out really well. After THREE cans of Duplicolor!!!
 
I'm doing some fillet repair after finding a couple of hairline cracks in the paint where the fillet faired into the fin on my Quicksilver. The fins are still solidly attached through the wall and the body is foamed, so I think a recent impact with the garage concrete flexed the fin enough to initiate a delamination. Oops. :facepalm: Oh well, I've been meaning to repaint this one anyway.

A little wet sanding, a little Dremeling, a little scraping....


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I'm doing some fillet repair after finding a couple of hairline cracks in the paint where the fillet faired into the fin on my Quicksilver. The fins are still solidly attached through the wall and the body is foamed, so I think a recent impact with the garage concrete flexed the fin enough to initiate a delamination. Oops. :facepalm: Oh well, I've been meaning to repaint this one anyway.

A little wet sanding, a little Dremeling, a little scraping....


Well that's the price to pay for being so skilled a flyer that it lands Right back in your garage!
 
Ran thru the mini, starting the Jr tomorrow.

I'm really enjoying Wildmans stuff.

...not sure why the pic is upside down, but ya get the idea
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My brother & I flew my paper plate flying saucer on a AT D21T at our local park.
Dang, that thing FLEW off the past super fast!!
Sweet flight! :)



Thanks,
 
Went shopping for a Super Big Bertha, none on the shelf, bought a Big Bertha and Big Daddy instead. Body tubes are $9 for a bag of three so now I'm thinking about a Delta IV-esqe Super Big Bertha... too cold to paint the others.
 
Finished building a half-moon baffle. Installed said baffle. Installed the lower centering ring using an Estes 29mm retainer to set position. Glued Y-harness to the end of the motor tube. Installed motor tube into the air frame.
 
Hung a new shop light over my bench. The old (not that old) fluorescent one died so swapped in an LED and now I shouldn’t have to worry about it again until... never I guess. :)
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I got super excited when Tim sent an email, and UPS confirmed I have 23lbs of motors on the way. Great black friday....
 
Started laying fillets. A couple of my slots ended up long (even though they were all measured the same), so I'm adding a small piece of paper towel to fill the hole so the fillet stays on the surface.
 
I finally got around to building the Estes SR-71 blackbird that I bought two years ago when I was a TRF noob from cbrarick. I had one of these in the early '90s, but I, regrettably, never finished the build. Since this hobby is 50% about reliving my childhood, and 50% about learning new, cool stuff, I figured it was time to finish what I started ~25 years ago.

Thankfully, Chris Michielssen has a series of blog posts on building the SR-71 to serve as my guide. The first step is gluing together the multi-part fins. I usually hate this, but I think it turned out pretty well this time.

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Thanks to jeff2space's housecleaning, I was able to add a few things to my build pile:

Mega Der Red Max (!!), Vagabond, Der Red Max, Mini Max, Mini Honest John, and a Viking. I already have a Der Red Max and Goblin on the pile, so I think I'm pretty well Maxed out for a while.

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I'm really looking forward to the Vagabond and MDRM builds. My local shop has a beautiful example of a Vagabond on the wall that has inspired me aim higher on my build and paint quality, rather than just squirt a bunch of glue at it and go fly.
 
Doing some CAD work, modifying a Hangar 11 4" X-15 for Boost Glider Operation, Sim will tell me if it can fly this way. I came up with a novel way to dump lots of nose weight (harmlessly) at apogee, so time will tell. Dumping weight makes it lighter for the glide, the X-15 has tiny wings, ya know. Gotta build this one VERY light.
 
I lengthen my Raven 3 Avbay. A 5" coupler makes me feel better then a glued in 2" coupler. I will tie an 1/8" kevlar loop through two wire ring terminals for harness attachment. 0111180746.jpg0111180745.jpg

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Glad to see people are getting CTI orders delivered!

I repaired my PSII Smoke (it hasn't flown, I'm just an idiot). Cut the body tube with teabag disaster shock cord mount and epoxied a Kevlar harness in a coupler and added new body tube. Should fly Saturday, still picking a motor but probably an F40 I have.
 
I finally got around to building the Estes SR-71 blackbird that I bought two years ago when I was a TRF noob from cbrarick. I had one of these in the early '90s, but I, regrettably, never finished the build. Since this hobby is 50% about reliving my childhood, and 50% about learning new, cool stuff, I figured it was time to finish what I started ~25 years ago.

Thankfully, Chris Michielssen has a series of blog posts on building the SR-71 to serve as my guide. The first step is gluing together the multi-part fins. I usually hate this, but I think it turned out pretty well this time.

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I have a 20+ years old SR-71 (from when my kids were kids) that was launched but never painted/finished. Guess I should get busy. Shame on you for shaming me.
 
Stared at my BBZ upscale across the room. Just don't feel like fillets today.

Edit: Stared at it too long. Got out the JB Weld and installed Estes retainers on the BBZ and Bandit. The instructions say to rough up the ID with sand paper. Well, I used 60grit and didn't like the result. Used a hacksaw blade to 'comb' the ID, now that is a rough surface.....
 
Painted my paper super dx3

Gawd I hate painting. Saying that, I'm sold on wildman's red fiber, sanding and clearcoat makes it look like candy. It's beautiful

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Bought another Go Devil 38. That’ll bring me up to four 38mm min-diameter birds. Ka-pow!
 
Like the age-old question of how many guns does one person need, the answer is always "just one more".

But really I just hope he's building one of these...

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I’ll never tell!

38mm MD is just a great sized rocket for my local field. I’m planning on a GD38 made for H & I motors, another one made for J motors, a Mongoose made for J & K motors and a spare Mongoose for whatever I decide later.
 
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