Another Cluster build ...

a few weeks back when I went launching I destroyed my FAT BOY cluster so I decided it was time to build another, but I decided to go with the Big Daddy instead. This rocket is similar to the Big Daddy, except it's airframe is 4" longer. I bought all the parts from Mercury Engineering and decided to leave the airframe the way it came and use the extra room to pack the laundry. I also bought their motor mount kit for 3x24mm. Not bad and the quality is pretty good. It comes with mat board center rings and the engine blocks and spacers are good quality. The only thing I wish is that the motor tubes were thicker. I had some LOC laying around that I was going to use, but opted out of sanding down the mat board and I didn't want to chance ruining it, so I used all the parts in the kit. The airframe tube (3") and the nose cone are also good quality. I used wood glue to assemble the center rings and tubes and 30 minute epoxy with milled fiberglass to mount the mount assembly in the airframe. I used a combination of Kevlar and nylon elastic shock cord to help take any stress during ejection. The fins are 3/16" balsa that I skinned with copy paper.

I also epoxied a piece of tube coupler to reinforce the AFT section of the airframe and then used 30 minute epoxy to coat the inside of the coupler to shield off some of the exhaust from the engines.

It was a rainy day so this is all the work I got done. Tomorrow I'll mount the fins, launch lug and laid down the epoxy fin fillets.



BTW - That is not my Tinkerbell coffee mug. It's my girlfriends and it's the only clean mug I have in the garage for my coffee. I swear!

Here is the ROCKSIM if any of you are interested. This rocket flies great on D12-7's and E9-8's. View attachment Estes_Big_Daddy_Revised 14 inch 3x24mm.rkt

Hopefully I can get it finished to take on my next launch. Waiting for the rain to clear and the lake bed to dry out so it might be a week or so?

Nice rocket, I see my first cluster build in the near future.
I can't open the sim,what kind of altitude can you expect with D's?

burnout said:

Nice rocket, I see my first cluster build in the near future.
I can't open the sim,what kind of altitude can you expect with D's?

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D12-7 = 1200' Deployment speed 8mph
E9-8 = 1930' Deployment speed 13mph

At my elevation 2119 and at 35% humidity, calm day, Max Alt between 2017 and 2027, 293 mph, deployment speeds of 2mph. Nice flier!

On a typical Kansas day with a breeze of 7mph +, the altitude was not affected, but the deployment jumped to 18mph.

Oh yeah, those flights were on E9-8s.

AfterBurners said:

BTW - That is not my Tinkerbell coffee mug. It's my girlfriends and it's the only clean mug I have in the garage for my coffee. I swear!

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Yeah, yeah.

I laid down some primer on this cluster and some Bondo Glaze and Spot Putty..just needs some sanding and repeat. I also got some goodies from Gary @ Top Flight. A couple chutes, Nomex blanket and 350lb barrel swivels for this project.

Can't wait to send this rocket up. On 3 E9-8's it will go over 1900' should make for an excellent video.



More to come........

I've got a similar 3x24 cluster, short 3" airframe bird "The Hot Pink Suppository of Discomfort". LCO's love to announce that!
Works great on anything from C11s to F39s. I need to check if I've got room to stuff 3 CTI F240s in there:shock:

Here it is on E9's:


And on F39Ts (unfortunately, audio&video aren't synched):
[video]https://s424.beta.photobucket.com/user/new2hpr/media/Rocketry/Hot%20Pink%20Suppository%20of%20Discomfort/HPSoD_on_3x_F39-9T_0001.mp4.html[/video]

Fun bird and indestructible!
-Ken

Nice picture. I love clusters! I might go with some neon colors only because that's the color I have lying around.

Well I finished up the body work today and sanded it smooth, but I didn't wet sand. I then sprayed it with Gloss White 2x coverage. I love the way this stuff goes on. Probably going to give it one more coat.





This build was something I wanted to get done in a fairly reasonable amount of time and lately when it comes to painting I haven't really been fussing over it that much; seeing that most of the rocket I fuss over end up exploding so that's why. :lol::lol: I sand and fill the spirals and put on some good coats. Get the body looking pretty decent and that's it. If I was building a scale rocket, then I would spend a lot more time on the paint.

Here some pictures of the nose cone. I still have to fill in the seam, but I will later.

I went back over the rocket after it dried and noticed that there were some imperfections so I had to wet sand a couple areas and then apply another coat. I also worked on the nose and did my best to fill the seam. It turned out pretty. Right now all I need to do is paint the nose cone "Gloss Black" and add a second color to the body. If I have enough florescent paint I might do that, but it looks like I'm low and I'm basically just going to use up what paint I have laying around here. It should look nice. I can't wait to launch this rocket and get some on board video of it. I have to order some motors for it today.

So how do I decide what color to paint a rocket? That's easy. Whatever color paint I have laying around that I'm almost out of. After I sprayed the AFT section Gloss White (Rust-oleum Ultra 2x) I masked off the fin can section and applied a few coats of Rust-oleum Fluorescent Pink to make it pop! Earlier in the day I painted the nose cone Duplicolor Gloss White and now that it dried for a few hours it was time to apply the Fluorescent Orange...yes Orange, but the nozzle failed and I got paint everywhere in drops on the garage floor and I decided time for a color change, so I let dry and just covered it with Rust-oleum Ultra 2x White Primer. After it dried I sprayed a few coats of Rust-oleum Fluorescent Green and now I have a finished rocket.



As far as recovery I'll be using a 24" Top Flight chute and Nomex blanket. I also plan on mounting (2) cameras on board to get some awesome video. I'll have one camera pointing up to capture the chute opening and the other camera pointing down to capture the flight from above. Bright as this rocket is I shouldn't have a problem finding it on the dessert lake bed and this time I hope it doesn't blow up. I had a great time building this and I used up some paint I had laying around so it worked out well. I ordered some D12-7's (2 packs) and E9-8 (1 pack) from Hobbylinc today. Hopefully by next week I'll be at the lake bed sending this thing up....

I think I'll paint all my basic/scratch build rockets some type of this color combination of fluorescent with either white or black base colors. The colors seem more forgiving and it makes sense because they are easy to see and track...the only time I won't is if it's a kit or scaled model.

Hope you guys enjoyed the build and like the finish rocket.

looks good ,I clustered my Big Daddy with 1 24mm and 3 18mm tubes. flew it on F-39 reload airstarting 3 C6-0s ,had 3 good flights with this combo till I lawn darted with an single F-24

oddmanrockets said:

looks good ,I clustered my Big Daddy with 1 24mm and 3 18mm tubes. flew it on F-39 reload airstarting 3 C6-0s ,had 3 good flights with this combo till I lawn darted with an single F-24

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Sorry to hear about the lawn dart...were you able to make the repairs. I also have a Big Daddy, but it isn't clustered. I might pick another up with my next order and cluster it or scratch build it.

Nice rocket! I use the fluorescents all the time. They look even better with clear cote.

Beautiful build bro. Awsome paint job !! Hey, how about running an experiment for us. Since you have some fluorescent paints on hand. Spray some on a surface and clear coat some of it and then try some future on another part. Let us know what--if any difference there is--. I tried the future on silver and was amazed. I'm sold on it !!

hornet driver said:

Beautiful build bro. Awsome paint job !! Hey, how about running an experiment for us. Since you have some fluorescent paints on hand. Spray some on a surface and clear coat some of it and then try some future on another part. Let us know what--if any difference there is--. I tried the future on silver and was amazed. I'm sold on it !!

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I can do that for you. I'm sure I have some future laying around. I miss this rocket...it was one that got destroyed. How you been Bill?

AfterBurners said:

I can do that for you. I'm sure I have some future laying around. I miss this rocket...it was one that got destroyed. How you been Bill?

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Sorry to hear about the loss of this cool rocket. At least you still have your Tinkerbell mug.

I like the fluorescent paints too. I painted my Big Daddy fluorescent orange and added a clear coat, and I think it looks great.

You mentioned maybe trying the fluorescent over a black base, but I think the color works better over white --- much brighter. Even putting it on top of grey primer does not work as well as over white.

AfterBurners said:

I can do that for you. I'm sure I have some future laying around. I miss this rocket...it was one that got destroyed. How you been Bill?

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Things are going ok but a bit tight these days. That's curtailed my rocket building a bit but I hope that changes soon. Any way, one thing to add to my request---keep a small patch uncoated as a control. just curious which one looks the best or has the richest color. I assume the uncleared/waxed is richer but ya never know!!

Do you want the neon over white and one over grey? I hear you on the money stuff. I just started a new job last week. Should last about 90-days. I'm working on a windows 7 migration project. At least after that if I don't find something else, which I'm sure I will my unemployment should kick in.

Try white. That seems to be the prefered base coat !

When I did the Big Daddy, I did a test before adding the clear coat to the rocket. I painted a piece of scrap with the orange, and then painted one side with gloss clear coat and left the other side uncoated. It really seemed to make no difference in the color --- one side was just shinier.

I expected it would make a difference, but it didn't seem to. I thought that fluorescent paint tended to glow a bit because of UV in sunlight making the pigment fluoresce, and maybe a clear coat might block the UV and leave the color less bright, but it didn't seem to. I definitely like the rocket better with the clear coat. When it had the flat orange, it tended to pick up all kinds of dirty smudges.

Another thing I noticed when using the fluorescent orange was it was brightest when you used a thin coat over white. But with a thin coat, the color was not as even as I liked. I added several coats and got a nice even tone, but the color was deeper or darker than you usually think of as fluorescent. It was still a great bright orange, but not totally " neon."

This rocket has so many coats of paint, it's ridiculous! I put at least 3 coats of Rustoleum filler primer on it to sand out the spirals. Then I put on a bunch of Flourescent orange over that. Turns out there was a problem with that can of paint. I wasn't getting good color with it, but since it was the first time using it, I didn't know what to expect. Part of the problem was probably due to putting it over grey primer, but toward the end of the can, it started spitting chunks and globs, so there was definitely an issue with the paint. I sanded out the globs, did another layer of filler primer, then a layer or two of gloss white for the new white base. Then I sprayed on a new layer of orange from a fresh can of orange. Much better results! Like I mentioned before, I did a few coats to get an even color. Then a coat of glossy clear. Then the decals. Then another coat of glossy clear. How many coats is that? A million? The rocket looks great, but it is a LOT heavier than a Big Daddy is supposed to be.