What did you do rocket wise today?

Bought some Devcon Plastic Welder for building my D-Region Tomahawk.

o1d_dude said:

I will dope slap anyone who recommends a pipe wrench to loosen a piece of motor hardware

The correct tool is a rubber strap wrench. Buy a set of two at Home Depot or Lowe's for anout $15. I carry the smaller one in my range box.

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Tell us how you really feel.

Worked on TLP FLAIL:
- Reinforced the nosecone cardboard extension
- Glued it to the nosecone
- Reinforced forward fins
- Cut and papered rear fins

Uploaded the time lapse video of the V2 rocket being assembled

[video=youtube;ltgw70poVN0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltgw70poVN0[/video]

Krusty

Won this Estes Puma ready -to - fly in the Nircon raffle last weekend. It needed a little something, so I peeled off the stock decals and striped it with some 1/16" crepe paper tape. Top coated with Mod Podge. Won't win any awards but I like it. Kinda resembles fancy women's stockings. I think I'll call it the Hosier Cat.

Launched 4 rockets this afternoon, one of them twice. All were Estes mini motors. Brought two larger rockets but the wind picked up too much.

Broke a fin on landing otherwise all flights went great. One recovery I caught 10 ft from the pad.

mrichhcirm said:

Won this Estes Puma ready -to - fly in the Nircon raffle last weekend. It needed a little something, so I peeled off the stock decals and striped it with some 1/16" crepe paper tape. Top coated with Mod Podge. Won't win any awards but I like it. Kinda resembles fancy women's stockings. I think I'll call it the Hosier Cat.

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Pic

krusty said:

Uploaded the time lapse video of the V2 rocket being assembled

[video=youtube;ltgw70poVN0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltgw70poVN0[/video]

Krusty

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Amazing flight, great video. Well done, Krusty, to you and your rocket crew.

Did the last pair of fillets on the Polecat Goblin 5.5. and I still suck at pulling fillets. Thank goodness I invested in those Perma-Grit round sanding tubes. Tomorrow I will be putting them to use for final shaping.

More work on the Madcow Frenzy motor mount, fillets, etc.

Discovered the black spots on one of my shock cords was charred nylon, not soot. Made up a couple of short kevlar cords to fit down inside the motor tube and payload section to mitigate the deployment charges effect. Note to self: Dog barf, use it.

Returned the 1x42 sanding belt, got my money back, drove over to the local Woodcraft store and picked up an assortment of the 1x30 belts I need for my Dremel 1731 belt/disk sander. The disk sander table had extremely poorly designed trunions and they have all failed on every 1731 I've ever seen. I shade tree machinist fixed them today. The table doesn't move and I'm fine with that.

Went to the local Fastenal in search of 1/4x20 aluminum all thread but no joy. Went to the Blue Collar Supply down the street from them and picked up a couple of 3' lengths of standard 1/4x20 all thread, stainless nylon insert nuts and and stainless plain nuts, too. Clerk says "Oh, building rockets again..."

Decided against making the trip down to Tripoli Central Cali for their launch at the dairy but am planning to attend their Dairy Aire launch in mid-May.

Took a picture of a strap wrench and pipe wrench. One is the tool you want to use to free up a stuck closure. The other is used for plumbing. Know the difference or catch a Martian dope slap!

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Doesn't look like I am going to be able to do what I had planned. Surprise surprise, it's F'n snowing again. Oh how I loath this crap state.

Started my redesign of the MMT for my Estes DRT Build.
I'm staying 24mm, but will make the tube from BMS T50H 34" stock so that it can extend through the bottom of the Fin Can just far enough to be able to use an Aero Pack Retainer instead of the included retention system.
I intend to fly it primarily on composite motors.

Also went to the Hobby Store hoping to find another BT-60 Coupler, but they did'nt have anymore so I got a 55 size coulpler and another 55 size conical cone.



I'm planning on using the 60 coupler to fly my 24mm FG Patriot as a 2 Stager. I'll just make one.

Finally got my CNC cutting square and to scale.

[video=youtube;plu1l7a2GUQ]https://youtu.be/plu1l7a2GUQ[/video]

It's a fin jig for a 2" body tube with 4x 1/8" fins

Finished up my 54mm av-bay to be shared between my Shape Shifter Jr and Darkstar Jr. I'll post some pics soon, but I forgot to take some tonight before putting it all back together in the rocket.
Now I need to finish my 3" version for my Punisher.

Launched my Wildman head DD on a J280 at TTRA & launched 5 smaller rockets as well. Great weather & a great day!

Finished up putting the fillets on the two Crayon Bank rockets, sanded and filled the voids on the airframes for my L1/L2 project. I even got one picture of them. The red is Bondo spot putty, it looks a mess but will shortly be much better.

sent my MadCow phoenix A.I.M.-54, up on its' maiden flight on an AT I161 white, straight flight w/ nice whistle. tried a couple of CTI motors in my priority stealth...the G88 smokey sam was kinda 'meh'(think I like the AT black jack better for this), and the G33 mellow yellow(great motor for a stealth).
Rex

Sanded the second conduit on my Madcow Aerobee Hi to shape. I think I've got about a pound of balsa dust in me and on me.
Picked up a T-nut and mounted the second motor retainer clip on the aft CR of the Aerobee Hi, then finalized the recovery harness situation. Onebadhawk 9/16 tubular Nylon all around with 20" of of TFR nomek shock cord protector at the bottom of the drogue cord, top of the drogue cord, and bottom of the main cord. The harnesses are really beautiful stuff. The loops are really, really great, and the material packs super tight, and is very soft. I highly recommend them!
I also installed the motor mount in the Aerobee Hi, and cut bulkheads for the av bay.

Finalized the shock cord arrangement on my Madcow Frenzy 54, and glued in the motor mount. It'll get the stock SC on the drogue, just because I couldn't fit an eye-bolt in there to attach a OBH (is that a thing?) harness to. But it'll be getting another beautiful harness from Teddy for the main.
Also beveled the fins for that one, and attached the first aft fin.

Nate

I received my order of recovery materials, so I made up the recovery harness for both my BT80 Bertha and BT70 Advanced Target Drone. With those in place, I was able to button up the ATD's airframe. Its now pretty much ready to fly, just needs some sanding and paint. The Bertha needed to have the motor mount fillets done, the rear centering ring installed, as well as the engine retainer and baffle. The harness is tied off to the baffle, so once that was on, the baffle could be installed. Now, it only needs lugs (well, buttons) to fly. However, I've only just started sanding it and have yet to put any primer on.

Perma-Grit'd the Polecat Goblin 5.5 fin fillets, sanded them smooth, sanded the booster section, primed it with Rusto Filler Primer, and realized I'd be doing a bit of Bondo glazing putty. I found a number of voids and ridges in the fillets and transitions.

Snapped a stack photo of the Madcow Frenzy, sanded fins and profiled them, sanded the booster tube, and generally prepared it for fins and motor mount.

View attachment 258638

Self-timer cameras are fun.

Worked on Simming my 2 stage Patriot.

TopRamen said:

Worked on Simming my 2 stage Patriot.

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I was also tempted to build a booster for my Patriot. Is the booster based on something existing or did you create if from scratch?

morlock said:

I was also tempted to build a booster for my Patriot. Is the booster based on something existing or did you create if from scratch?

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It's the BT60 E2X Estes Booster. $4.97 at Walmart. I just need to add a coupler to it to fit it to the Patriot.
I'm also going to drill two holes into the side of it so that it hangs on until upper stage ignition.

Made a bracket for my RCRG to mount it on a ceiling beam in the garage. It's a kind of short 1010 rail made if plywood. The glider has rail guides on the bottom that double as landing skids.

Flying gliders at Moffett and landing in concrete there really chews up the underside. The rail guides got some fresh marks yesterday after 3 flights at the LUNAR launch.

Ari.

Hardened the electrical connections on the Tick's altimeter bay by installing ferrules on all stranded wires. I highly recommend doing this.

matthewdlaudato said:

View attachment 258724
Hardened the electrical connections on the Tick's altimeter bay by installing ferrules on all stranded wires. I highly recommend doing this.

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I like this - got details?
Where do you get them? Special tool needed? etc?

Only need to finish the recovery on these two -

View attachment 258790

Paul said:

Only need to finish the recovery on these two -

View attachment 258789View attachment 258790

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Crossfire looks great in that color!!!

Got all three fins on the Aerobee Hi, and sanded the last conduit to shape. Then I went over then with some 280 grit. Next up is 400 grit.
Attached three more fins to the frenzy
Did another set of fillets on the Madcow Pike, and did the first set of fillets on the Wildman Eagle Claw Sport.
Placed an order with Missileworks.

Nate

Spent a couple hours researching Minimum Diameter 24mm Rockets.

Started work on my Beaker Rocket!