Latest from UpscaleCNC

Wingarcher said:

Looks like someone liked your work. This customer supplied dimensions, desired widths, planned slot depth, the material, etc etc. The designs I produced were based entirely on that information and supplied drawings. Until now, I didn't know about your rocket.


N

Click to expand...

Love his work and the work of USCRPL, although I do think Ryan's are a better design. Nat, he knows who the customer(s) are; the other guy involved in the project is his long time friend.


BTW Ryan,

I don't think Nat was meaning that he came up with the design as his own but rather meaning that when drawing up the design, accounts had to be made for the overall fin shape and the addition of the phenolic edges. As that took some thinking/drawing time to get the overall dimensions of the fin with three separate pieces plus the depth of the slots.

I just ran across this thread. VERY cool stuff, especially the part about maxing out the Max!

I started working with Nat quite a while before we opened the doors for business. He's a rocket flyer with a router service, which translates into a win, win situation for us all. I always tell him that without his parts I only have tubes. If you have a project or a thought you want to get from paper to part, contact Nat [email protected] . To use someone else would just be wrong! :no:

Thanks Nat!

Mike Crupe
www.macperformancerocketry.com
NAR/TRA
L3

FLY CANVAS!

Got some bulkheads in today from Nat. These things are slick. I received eight bulkheads, six to fit 4" MadCow tubes and two to fit 4" Binder tubes. The MadCow bulkheads are just about perfect. The Binder bulkheads are a bit big. This is not Nat's fault. I gave him the measurements. I'm figuring that my measurements were off. Not a big issue. Time for sand paper.

He also dropped in two 1/4" holes in each one for me. Perfectly spaced and matched for my all thread. I'll be adding the additional holes myself. I didn't get them pre-cut because I'm not 100% sure where I am placing them yet. I'm sure my future orders will be getting much more detailed.

I'm very happy with my purchase. The price and shipping was very reasonable. I'll be making more purchases and recommend others check him out as well.

And.... we're back! This thread disappeared with the new financial arrangements around here and I finally ponied up and here we are again! There's been quite a bit going on here and I have pictures of a few things.



First up is a big pile of stuff that was requested over time from a customer. These were cut to supplied drawings so we had a map to follow, but didn't get involved in the design. CNC machines are very precise, especially for hole drilling- many of these parts are designed to stack up and bolt together. Sometimes we drill to final size on the router but many times this is done as a separate operation on a drill press. The router drills a 1/8 hole and that is enlarged to the final size.


Clusters! But notice the scale- these are 1/8" glass rings with 8 18mm holes for LPR type paper tubing and a central 24mm. Our customer requested glass and we were happy to oblige!



These are some parts made to spec for a friend of ours- the big plate goes in a 7.5" cone for a WAC Corporal... the other stuff is smaller 3" (I think) avbay parts for his designs. Not pictured here was a custom designed BigRedBee Beeline RDF transmitter bay rig for a 38mm nose cone. Maybe in a follow up post....



3/16 G10 bling... notice the little details we pay attention to- the bumped out corner (a "T-Bone Fillet") that eliminates hand filing to make a square inside corner- these fins arrive ready to go and cut to the spec from the customers file.

Happy to be back here posting interesting stuff, hope to be making more cool stuff soon! There's a size large project up next and then a SERIOUSLY LARGE project after that.....

AND...... There's MAJOR news coming in the next few weeks...... :jaw:

Nat Kinsey
UpscaleCNC

Wingarcher said:

View attachment 298139

First up is a big pile of stuff that was requested over time from a customer. These were cut to supplied drawings so we had a map to follow, but didn't get involved in the design. CNC machines are very precise, especially for hole drilling- many of these parts are designed to stack up and bolt together. Sometimes we drill to final size on the router but many times this is done as a separate operation on a drill press. The router drills a 1/8 hole and that is enlarged to the final size.

Click to expand...

A free G motor to whomever who can tell me what those parts are for...

Hint - There are three projects there. Identify any one and the motor is yours.

H_Rocket said:

A free G motor to whomever who can tell me what those parts are for...

Hint - There are three projects there. Identify any one and the motor is yours.

Click to expand...

One of those bulkheads looks like it would be used for a nose cone tracker bay. The one in the center.

I'm curious to know what these are for....

H_Rocket said:

A free G motor to whomever who can tell me what those parts are for...

Hint - There are three projects there. Identify any one and the motor is yours.

Click to expand...

I am going with at least one three finned rocket...seriously nice work Nat!

blackbrandt said:

One of those bulkheads looks like it would be used for a nose cone tracker bay. The one in the center.

I'm curious to know what these are for....

Click to expand...

Well there are some parts that involve a tracker there. Not that one though.

mpitfield said:

I am going with at least one three finned rocket...seriously nice work Nat!

Click to expand...

Not too far off, however I think you could go off course real fast.


There are two solutions for problems with avionics here - both will have build threads over the winter. By the way while that was the result, this is not meant to hijack Nat's thread. I want people to see how he can help solve problems by fabricating almost anything your fevered imagination can come up with.

Hijack away, Al! It's fun! Can I drop a hint? Sure I can.... it's my thread isn't it, and I'm paying dearly for it!




N

Glad to see you back here!

Always great work!

Glad to see you're back on here! I was wondering where this thread went...

Parts all the way to the left look like they are for a nose cone AV bay. It also looks that some of the rings may be centering rings for a two stage sustainer that is bigger than all heck. Some parts wouldn't also happen to be for a Mother Lode either would they?

claytonbirchenough said:

Parts all the way to the left look like they are for a nose cone AV bay. It also looks that some of the rings may be centering rings for a two stage sustainer that is bigger than all heck. Some parts wouldn't also happen to be for a Mother Lode either would they?

Click to expand...

Nope, Naw, and Wrong!

H_Rocket said:

Nope, Naw, and Wrong!

Click to expand...

Hahaha. Worth a shot! Awesome work though, seriously... Whatever it is for haha.

H_Rocket said:

A free G motor to whomever who can tell me what those parts are for...

Hint - There are three projects there. Identify any one and the motor is yours.

Click to expand...

Is one a Black Brant?

Wait.... I know what it's for.

It's for.... a rocket.

Ran a couple things today for a customer. The fins are a re-cut of a set of 4 we did a week or two ago, the owner is experimenting with beveling processes on a milling machine and wants to fine tune his methods. We were happy to oblige and it's easy enough to spit out another set!

The rings and little skinny things are a smaller (4"-3") version of the big fin pocket design we did for the 8" pike. 1/8" rings and 3/32" pockets. These will require a bit of hand work with a small file to square the notches up and get the pocket pieces to fit the rings tightly.

Too hot for much else here....



Nat Kinsey
UpscaleCNC

No, no, no.... wrong....

A series of assumptions and mis-reading of email on my part lead to the parts shown in the previous post. Customer ACTUALLY wanted 4 fin pockets and spacing for 3/16 fins. I really screwed this one up, so we spit out two more pocket sides and the correct rings. These will hit the mail this week!




Nat Kinsey
UpscaleCNC

H_Rocket said:

A free G motor to whomever who can tell me what those parts are for...

Hint - There are three projects there. Identify any one and the motor is yours.

Click to expand...

I have no idea what all that stuff is for but I'm pretty sure that the three 3/16 fins in his other picture are the fins that he recently cut for my upscale Onyx.

This project found it's way to the router from the MAC Performance Rocketry website. The design was sent over as a pair of DXF files and a request for 5 of each, all from 1/16" G10. The thin strakes/ribs are nearly 3' long and only about 3/8" wide. The design included TTW fin tabs and on the strakes, what looked like TTT (through the tube) tabs. Shipped these strapped to a piece of plywood to keep the strakes together!



Nat Kinsey
UpscaleCNC

Wingarcher said:

View attachment 299108

Click to expand...

AGM-78 Standard ARM?

No, all five fins are being used. It's a pretty cool design, I've seen the RS file. Not sure if the customer is a TRF member or not, maybe he'll chime in here... or not.

N

This project has been kicking around the shop for a while... One of our Canadian friends got himself an 8" glass kit, split fins, a 20lb nosecone, etc etc. It has a SIX inch motor mount in it. We're making up an adaptor so it can be built with that 6" MMT tube but then fly on 4" motors. SCP Precision was contracted to make a custom thrust plate. The plate will bolt to the rear adaptor ring and after stuffing into the rocket, bolt to the outer rings. Was fun to coordinate with SCP, they do beautiful work!


8-6 rings, 6-4 rings. Spotted holes for future pemnuts probably not visible.... or are they!?



Nat Kinsey
UpscaleCNC

Wingarcher said:

This project found it's way to the router from the MAC Performance Rocketry website. The design was sent over as a pair of DXF files and a request for 5 of each, all from 1/16" G10. The thin strakes/ribs are nearly 3' long and only about 3/8" wide. The design included TTW fin tabs and on the strakes, what looked like TTT (through the tube) tabs. Shipped these strapped to a piece of plywood to keep the strakes together!

View attachment 299108

Nat Kinsey
UpscaleCNC

Click to expand...

Bigger version of a rocket I lost ( came in ballistic off the field) in Tucson. Scratch design.

Nat, they fit perfectly, great job.

Today I cut the last parts in our shop in Piffard, NY. This space was started with help from my Dad right after we'd moved in, back in Oct of '08. A lot has happened since- Dad's gone almost 4 years now, we added on to double the heated area in the barn about 3 years ago, the house was a full gut and rebuild and redesign, got into CNC routers about 5 years ago, made a lot of parts, dust, chips, scrap, and friends.

No, UpscaleCNC isn't closing the doors, just moving our operation further on up the road. My lady has a great job she loves but the commute to her work locations was 1:15 or :55, just too much driving. So, we found a property that's about 20 minutes to both locations. It's a beautiful combination of mature forest, reed marsh, 3/4 acre pond, hillsides and slopes and a nice newer ranch with attached garage, walk out basement, about 300ft off the road right in the middle of the woods. It's hard to leave the Genesee Valley-- my home for nearly 40 years but this new place is beautiful too. We'll make the house our own (uh, well, not like the last one, for those of you who know what we did there... ) with some renovations and outfit a new shop.

The last Piffard parts- a pair of 4" fin jigs for the booster of a pretty extreme two stage rocket. Shortly after these were made I pulled the wiring harness off the router, removed the Z, and we pulled the gantry beam off the table. This week, we'll move the deck of the machine and the table it sits on.




Nat Kinsey
UpscaleCNC

One "need" in our property search was for a separate building to use for the CNC shop. We were open to building one but this property, in addition to all the amazing terrain, forest, landscaping, utilities, and location -- had a separate 2 car building set into the side of the hill, just about 20 feet from the house. This 22x22 or so building will be retrofit to insulated and heated shop space to house UpscaleCNC. Need to run power from the house, get heat installed, insulate, etc etc. This isn't big as our previous area ( in a 30x40 barn) but due to the house having a full walkout basement, a lot of the overflow will be in the basement.

Nice shop in the woods, 'eh?


Nat Kinsey
UpscaleCNC

So, for at least the next few days to a week- I'm not making parts. We will get the router set up in the basement of the house as a temporary solution. I will continue to provide service to my wholesale customers and all the custom work we've been doing, too. Before the snow flies around here we'll get the trench dug and power run to the shop buildin and a heater installed. Might do a little build thread as we complete the shop space.

Nat Kinsey
UpscaleCNC

Extreme 2 stage mentioned above- we cut the fins, too. Our customer fabricated a carbon/G10/carbon sandwich plate from 1/16 G10 and several layers of carbon fiber, all stacked up and vacuum bagged. When it arrived we discussed some modifications to his fin designs so we could get all the parts on the sheet. As you can see from the first pic, there wasn't much wiggle room. This was cut with a 1/16 endmill in two passes.

This was the third big dollar carbon project in a row- first was cutting very large format fins from 1/2" divinylcell carbon sandwich panels, second was 3/16 solid carbon plate fins.



Closeup of the carbon and the edges


Nat Kinsey
UpscaleCNC