On Saturday's launch I found an old Baby Bertha in the woods that had obviously been lost in the trees many moons ago during a club launch and had fallen down. It was unusable to me (the nosecone and parachute were gone - probably still in the tree above - and the body tube was warped and ripped) but I did take a moment to inspect the construction.
Whoever built it didn't use any filler at all on the tube spiral or the fins, they just painted it with one coat of black. The fins were rough as could be and the spiral stuck out like a sore thumb. It looked like no fillet was attempted in the glue that held on the fins, there was a lot of lumps of glue down the sides so it looked more like caulk than glue. It just looked like crap, and I'd never want to show anyone a rocket I built that looked like that.
But then I thought... why am I being so critical? Why am I such a snob? I'd bet that whoever built it had a LOT of fun building it and flying it, and that's the only thing that should matter. I like it when people tell me that the ones I build look nice, but that's what I'm going for. Whoever built that one may have spent an hour sitting with their best friend, or maybe it was a father and son, each building a rocket as quickly as possible to fly with minimal regard for looks. And there's not a thing wrong with doing that.
Maybe from now on I'll be less likely to look at someone else's rocket and judge how it looks. I should just enjoy watching it fly and do what I can to help them have fun.
Whoever built it didn't use any filler at all on the tube spiral or the fins, they just painted it with one coat of black. The fins were rough as could be and the spiral stuck out like a sore thumb. It looked like no fillet was attempted in the glue that held on the fins, there was a lot of lumps of glue down the sides so it looked more like caulk than glue. It just looked like crap, and I'd never want to show anyone a rocket I built that looked like that.
But then I thought... why am I being so critical? Why am I such a snob? I'd bet that whoever built it had a LOT of fun building it and flying it, and that's the only thing that should matter. I like it when people tell me that the ones I build look nice, but that's what I'm going for. Whoever built that one may have spent an hour sitting with their best friend, or maybe it was a father and son, each building a rocket as quickly as possible to fly with minimal regard for looks. And there's not a thing wrong with doing that.
Maybe from now on I'll be less likely to look at someone else's rocket and judge how it looks. I should just enjoy watching it fly and do what I can to help them have fun.