Madcow 4" Patriot Build / Repair

Dis-assembled E-bay yesterday, going to spread a layer of epoxy on both outer bulkheads to make clean up easier, and to also seal the hole where the ejection charge leads come through. Last is to drill the vent holes for the RRC3, then do some testing. Have to find some 4Fg powder.

dgreger said:

View attachment 142074
Ok, I'm not the best photographer but, Here she is. Still debating if I am going to add Stars to the Nose Cone, it might take away from the metallic.
Again, Decals by Mark at Stickershock, Do they get any better???

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Dave, your Sam Adams Patriot has inspiried me. I just contacted Mark at Stickershock about doing a Porsche theme for the Madcow Super DX3 that I ordered yesterday.

Dave it looks awesome.. Thank you for the thread..................

I liked the picture of your bench with the SA-14 on the wall...... I am almost done rebuilding mine.
Had a dumb accident the day after my LVL 1 Cert.

Don't get distracted drilling and installing the Cessaroni Pro 38's !!

Glasspack said:

Dave it looks awesome.. Thank you for the thread..................

I liked the picture of your bench with the SA-14 on the wall...... I am almost done rebuilding mine.
Had a dumb accident the day after my LVL 1 Cert.

Don't get distracted drilling and installing the Cessaroni Pro 38's !!

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Thanks Glasspack, I flew the Archer this past weekend after repairing it. Installed a baffle and when the ejection charge went off it tore the center out of the baffle, was using kevlar and an eye bolt. I removed the baffle and went traditional kevlar through the CR to nylon. An AT SU F26-6 gave it a nice medium boost straight up to about 900ft, good deployment and recovery about 50ft from the pad in 8-12 mph winds. Its probably going to become one of my workhorse fliers!
NCR makes quality kits.

OK First ejection charge test Successful! 1 Gram, 3, 2-56 nylon shear pins and a perfect shot.

Ok, I know its been a while but I fianlly got the Cert Flight video!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTvnqXLtB2w&feature=youtu.be

Nice cert flight! I wasn't there that day so this was the first time I had seen it.

Pete A. did a nice job filming it. Cant wait for Red Glare to put it up Dual Deploy, I have the I345WT for Friday, and the I540WT (5 Grain) for either Saturday or Sunday.

Heres the launch sequence. I pulled it from the video using none other than Microsoft Movie Maker.

Dave,
I just wanted to say you did a good job on this thread(as well as the flight vehicle). far too many threads start in
this forum, only to never finish, at least for my taste. keep up the thorough work,its appreciated.

Thanks Glenn, I think I could have gone into a little more detail and more pics on the build itself though. You can bet when I start my L2 thread I will have tons!
Cant wait to get started on that, once Red Glare is over. I do have all winter and that helps because I have No idea how its going to look as far as colors and paint. You know me, I like to come up with Themes!

Two successful Dual Deploy Flights last weekend at Red Glare XV.
1st on a CTI I236 Blue Streak to 2143ft
2nd on a CTI I345 White Thunder to 2226ft. Don Granger has a great Lift Off shot of this one on his page. I'll post a link to it later.
Next up CTI I195 Red Lightning, Should have flown these in order (Red, White, Blue! haha)

Just hope that all of us are dyslexic...

Flew the trusty Patriot at MDRA ESL-191 on 5/17/14 on a CTI I223 Skidmark to 2158ft.
Then this past weekend flew again at MDRA ESL-196 on 10/12/14 on a CTI J316 Pink for Breast Cancer Awareness Month to a new personal best altitude of
3611 feet, only to drift into the tress. However, I found it about 50yds in. I was walking in increments of about 10-15 feet, stopping and scanning the trees.
I stopped, looked up, and at the same time I saw the sustainer/drogue, I also heard the altimeter! So G-Dog and I got the 35ft firemans pole and went after it. It was just barely within reach.
Here is what it looked like when we got it to the ground:



Fortunately, the zipper stops about 6" from the upper CR, so I will cut it, add a coupler and a new piece of airframe, prep and paint and it will be good as new.
Too bad too, as it was in perfect shape hanging in the tree!
A huge shout out goes to Julie at Sphrachutes on her parachutes! Glenn and I literally were hanging from the shock cords and were hoping the chute would rip and drop from the tree versus zippering the airframe, but after examining the chute there isnt one rip or torn attachment point for the shroud lines!

I will add pictures of the repair here on the thread!

Oh no!

Nathan said:

Oh no!

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Not as bad as it looks Nathan, already ordered the replacement decal from Mark, and laid out the cut line on the body tube.
I have to say that Pink motor has a really nice kick!
Oh and there was a sighting of Glenn's Pike on Sunday! A couple guys were in the woods looking for their cert rocket and saw it, thought they got a gps coordinate on it but when they got back to the flight line found out it didnt work. (Whoops!) they said it was only like 20ft from the ground too. Hopefully once the leaves drop we'll find it.
Now, if we can just find your Magg.......

Damage removed.
With the grey primer showing it almost looks like aluminum!

New Airframe piece cut, coupler ready.
I also filled the spirals, just need to sand the paint along the edge of the sustainer, epoxy the coupler in, add the new piece, fill sand and paint.
New decal from Mark should be here tomorrow.

[video=youtube_share;L7nHQMgpI2s]https://youtu.be/L7nHQMgpI2s[/video]

Here's the launch on that J316 Pink.
Pete didn't film the whole flight, there was a cert flight after mine he was going to film.


Sent from my iPhone using Rocketry Forum

Update on the repair, due to the way the decal/lettering is offset I could not get a decent break point to repaint, so I stripped off the entire decal and will mask and paint from the top of the red stripes above the fins, just have to get out there and sand!

Good luck with the sanding, hopefully your back won't get too sore . On the original build, what did you use for the filler after sanding?

I used Elmers Wood Filler for the spirals and anywhere else that needed filling, then sanded, primed with Rustoleum 2 n 1 Filler Primer.
I'll get it all done and painted this weekend and put it up either the J425 Blue Streak (est 4045) or the J354 White (est 4200) at the next launch.

Hmm I'll have to re-read the instructions when I get home, I don't remember it saying to do that! It'll be helpful to do regardless, thanks for keeping me in the loop!

Got some more sanded on the airframe, wound up removing all of the decal and taping up just above the fins, couldnt get a nice clean line, so I am actually going to remove some of the red stripes above the fins, reposition the decal centering it this time. Hopefully I'll get some paint on it this weekend.