What did you do rocket wise today?

Had a nasty day at work so I knocked off a little early and...

launched my baby bertha for the second time. Launched on a B6-4. Went up reasonably straight, considering that I screwed up one of the fins. Had no trouble with recovery. Must say that launching rockets is therapeutic.

I worked on some fin fillets and body tube repairs on the Estes AMRAAM refurbish.

Finished setting the Createx on my Viking to get it ready for a school demo on Friday. Also decaled it.

Still hacking at the transition/body seam of my Pulsar Probe scratcher. Then I laid out the fin patterns for my next scratch design: a 2-stager named Twilight.

I've been cutting enough G10 and plywood on my CNC mill lately that I'm tired of holding the shop vac hose near the cutter to pull the dust away. So I drew up this vacuum hood that will friction fit over the spindle nose. Of course that meant that I had to hold that damn hose for another hour, but it will be worth it in the end.

It's made from several layers of 1/2" MDF glued and pinned together. There are two more layers that will be glued on top, but I just glued them together and they are on the spindle nose drying.

ChrisAttebery said:

I've been cutting enough G10 and plywood on my CNC mill lately that I'm tired of holding the shop vac hose near the cutter to pull the dust away. So I drew up this vacuum hood that will friction fit over the spindle nose. Of course that meant that I had to hold that damn hose for another hour, but it will be worth it in the end.

It's made from several layers of 1/2" MDF glued and pinned together. There are two more layers that will be glued on top, but I just glued them together and they are on the spindle nose drying.

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Sometimes I think I spend more time making up jigs and tools for my projects than actually doing the work on the project.

Dust and chip control is important, tho. Nice job on your collection hood.

Thanks! Dust control is especially important with fiberglass. It's bad for people and machines alike.

o1d_dude said:

Sometimes I think I spend more time making up jigs and tools for my projects than actually doing the work on the project.

Dust and chip control is important, tho. Nice job on your collection hood.

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Another thing I have been working on is a nose cone altimeter bay for the LOC 5.5" cones. I have all of the wood cut for this one, I just need to finish a set of the aluminum brackets. FWIW, LOC cones are NOT round inside. :wink:

Got a ton of things done on my MLAS today...
Epoxied the motor mount into the body tube.
Cut, sanded and papered all eight fins.
Sanded first layer of filler on the nose.

Ordered a HC-06 module so that I can connect up my phone via bluetooth and use the rocket locator app with my Eggfinder.

Cut some Tubes to length and test fit my new MMT/Retainer Assembly.
Also put a launch Lug on my 13mm AIM-120 AMRAAM so I can fly it before I finish it.






MMT and Retainer all in one! I've been wanting to try this style for awhile now.
The best things about it are the lightweight and that it can be made out of parts I have on hand, saving me a few bucks from ordering screw on style. I have plenty of flat aluminum to make the closures with. The Mount is also kept lightweight by being so short. There is no thrust ring so you can use any length motors.
I think that I'll do some more in this style.
I'll sand away some of the excess JB Weld before installing it.

I finished the parts for the LOC 5.5" nose cone altimeter bay.

I logged in to TRF for the first time in months after a really nasty round of depression.

Zeroignite said:

I logged in to TRF for the first time in months after a really nasty round of depression.

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I was wondering what had happened to you. Sorry for the rough stretch, but welcome back.

Painted the booster for my Mini Red Max (heh heh...should be fun!) and did some fillets on my HPR project.

nothing today I need to spray clear coat but its a blizzard outside

A note to self always paint in middle of winter !!!! no bug tracks in paint !!!!

Started to work on my 3" Darkstar that I just got from Wildman. And after my Alma Mater gave a "Boilermaker Beatdown" to Indiana last night I have decided to name it the "Black and Gold Star" :tongue:

Started tumbling Ideas around in my head for an ASTER-30 Rocket.

stuck two fingers together with superglue!!

View attachment 253455

ordered adheseive and some misc. parts. tried to figure what I'm going to do about the battery and switch getting in the way of each other on a 6" long altimeter bay. Might just change it to an 8" bay so I have more options on where to mount things.

Today all I did was ask questions and do research. Tonight there will be no rocketry. Starting tomorrow night, it'll be rocketry nightly in prep for my first launch since returning to rocketry late last year. 4 rockets to paint. 3 to complete and paint. And if time allows, I just got 4 of the Estes PSII rockets. It'd be nice to have one ready for the launch, but I refuse to rush their completion.

Got a shipment from Performance Hobbies of a bunch of random stuff. I'd been working out the details of this order since New Year's Eve, so it's like a late Christmas present for me. There's also a Minie-Magg coming with this order that was drop-shipped directly from LOC, looks like it will be delivered today.



It was amusing unboxing the things at my desk at work last night, a few friends who were hanging around effectively made a cheering section. "Oh look, it's a TUBE! And another tube! With little tubes inside the tube! And a wooden disk! And a disk with a large hole in it! Oh no, another tube!" Not exactly exciting parts to random passers-by. But I finally own some motor cases, and can fly Pro38's from 2G-6GXL, Pro29's from 5G-6GXL (a 6G Pro29 case was included as a part of my Minie-Magg order, I upgraded it to 6GXL and added spacers to my order to make it more useful, I'll probably only fly 38mm motors but my Dad might get some use out of the Pro29 case so I figured it was worth a few extra bucks to upgrade it), and AT 38mm's from 38/120 to 38/360, and as I understand it the "EZ" reloads since I have the FFC (I bought an I357T by accident at my last launch thinking it was a DMS, now I should be able to fly the thing).

JJSR said:

stuck two fingers together with superglue!!

View attachment 253455

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One of my first builds was a QCC Explorer and I thought I could just superglue all of the parts together. My fingers suffered for days. I was peeling superglue flakes off for days. Sometimes wood glue is the way to go. Plus you can just roll that glue up like boogers instead of peeling layers of skin off

Went to the LHS and almost got a "Kit", but they had peices parts too, so I got some BT-50 and 55 and Cones. Also grabbed some 20 Minute Epoxy as I'm getting low on it. Got another Box of Nitrile Gloves at the Hardware store too.
Gonna' make a Minimum Diameter 24mm Patriot and a BT-55x24mm Crossfire Clone. Both Glassed ofcourse, so it won't happen til it gets nice outside.

Nothing. USPS failed to bring me a package to open again.

Primed the tube fin payload bay again with crappy "zero build" Rusto 2X white primer. Seriously, it has no build solids in it at all. Going to switch over to gray Rusto Filler Primer and just top it with white before laying down the color coats. The payload bay has been drilled out for vent, snap rivets, and 2-56 nylon screws as have the two av-bays. Where I would normally just paint payload bay with fluoro pink to match the booster, I'm really starting to like the look of a gloss white payload section for that pink/black/white color scheme.

Primed my OSPX nose cone with Rusto Plastic Primer. In a week or so "for maximum paint adhesion" I will sand it a bit and then start with layers of Rusto Filler Primer.

Checked on my Missileworks RRC2+ order which is still in the "new" status.

Looked at a set of Wera precision screwdrivers for rocketry use. They are very nice and make my Wiha set look weak. Also looked at a set of Fisch brad point drill bits for the drill press. The Hitachi set I have are difficult to center properly in the chuck because the larger bits have triangular profiles to fit 3/8" chucks. That profile is "okay" for hand held drills but for drill presses not so much.

Worked on fins for an Estes MIRV. Thanks to the advice I found on some threads, I knew to assemble the fins in pairs to align them correctly. This is the most lengthy, technical kit I have done in a while.

Two things for me so far: 1) received a box from Apogee and 2) fell victim to Estes clearance sale, ends tomorrow, etc. I ordered the bundle #1 (Xarconian Cruiser, MIRV, Super Neon XL, Air Commander & Mega Mosquito) and a PS2 Leviathan. As if I didn't have enough to build, but the prices...

Today is Show Choir competition but yesterday taught rocketry at my wife's elementary school. Launches and all.

The next rounds of kits arrived in the mail. Quest Astras for my son and daughter, and a Newway Lune R4 for me. This is gonna be a fun build.