Estes Curvilinear XL

This is what happens when I get too much time and start playing with Open Rocket. I saw this little button that said 'scale', clicked around, tried it and started working out this rocket. I think it might work, Open Rocket says it might work.

Got some tubing, rings and motor mount tubing to play with. Gotta get nose cone and ply for the fins and get a pattern. Going to try and keep it simple motor eject at apogee.

With the ring this rocket will have to use rod guides.

Changed the colors around, instead of purple, went with red. Should be a good looking rocket.

Should be an interesting project to build and get the ring to work.

See ya,
Rod

View attachment Estes Cuvilinear upscale.ork

Here are the parts I have mocked up with the original BT-60 based kit. And a pic showing how I would like the lugs to be.

I think the 1/8 ply like Estes uses in their pro series kits will be plenty for this upscale. I used 1/8 balsa as a mock up fin in the pic.

Ply rings and a 38 mm motor tube with through the wall fin tabs.

I had to come up with a method to measure and cut the tubing. I used a BT-50 tube with a ring on the outside for a stop. Measured and set the ring for the length I needed, then went around each tube and drew a line by holding the ring against the end of the tube and drawing a short line at the end of the Bt-50. I then wrapped the tubes with masking tape with the edge of the tape just on the line and wrapped several layers of tape to build up an edge for the knife to follow. Then just slowly went around each tube following the edge of the tape with the knife until the section I wanted was cleanly cut.

Any suggestions on this project? Should I back down on the motor to 29 mm? I thought that using by 38, it might give more choices for engines. Although with the short tube, I might be limited on choices anyway.

Got the fins cut, Fin slots cut, test fit and everything slips together great. Have to clean up the nose cone seams and cut off bottom. This short rocket will have to have the gear farther up as there will be no room between nose cone base and motor mount tube.

This has been a fun project so far. Learned a lot about upscaling. Hope this thing launches as good as the OR sim thinks it will.

Very nice upscale. It would great for the upscale build contest.

I would like to enter that contest but I won't be able to finish and launch in time. Our next local launch is coming up fast and we are still melting a lot of show. Meaning it WILL be a muddy mess for a while.

Thanks for the kind words and invite.

Going to build an adapter to reduce down to 29 mm or even down to 24 mm engines. Give me even more engine options. Want to launch low and slow maybe a 24 mm F, or let it rip on the 38.

Found this after thinking the same thing ("Gee, the Curvilinear would be neat to upscale..."). How did it turn out? Any photos of launches?

Sorry not done yet and haven't gotten a lot done but your welcome to build one. Just had too many things in the way of this project. Work, too many hobbies, etc......Feel free to post here if you do build one. Thread is open to share.

I considered turning a Warlock kit into a super-duper XL Curvilinear. It would have been similar, but not exact scale, and the fin ring would have been larger diameter to accommodate the rail. Ultimately, I built the kit stock, but I think it would have been cool.

MIne is BT-80 based