X-Plane SST in BlueTube

This thread will chronicle my building of the X-Plane SST. My version will be made with 4” Bluetube. It will be approximately 85” long and have a 54mm motor mount. But first, some history…..

In December of 2012, qquake2k started his build of the X-Plane SST.
Jim’s rocket is an upscale of the X-Plane SST built by Quaranta which he started in July of 2012.

Being so inspired by Jim’s build, I started making plans to build my own version. In February of 2013, I placed an order with Mark at Stickershock for the decal sheet. Fast forward to October of 2013 when I finally acquired some 4” Bluetube 2.0 tubing, a section of 54mm motor tube and a 4”(4:1 Ogive) nosecone.

Let the build process begin!

This is my first exposure to building with BlueTube. When thinking through how I was going to approach the build, I was expecting to cut the BlueTube on my band saw. I think I saw qquake2k doing this on one of his builds. Well it turns out that my band saw is too small to handle the 4" tubing. After looking around at my available tools, I settled on the hand miter saw as the best candidate for the job.



I wanted to start this build at the e-bay. In addition to the two 4" tubes I purchased, I also picked up a full length coupler tube. I cut off a 12" section with the miter saw and then used my bench sander to clean up the cut.


I then cut off a 4" section of the body tube and epoxied it to the coupler.

I then started on the bulk heads and centering rings for this build. I use a circle cutter that I purchased a Sears. While not the ultimate method, it works really well for me. I start out buy making some samples using cardboard scraps. Once I got the size just about right (a little too big is better than a little too small) I cut out 4 bulkheads for the body tube.



I then stacked the bulkheads onto a bolt and loaded them onto the drill press. A few minutes with some 50 grit sandpaper was all that was needed to get these to the perfect size.



I then followed the same steps to create 2 additional bulkheads that will fit inside the coupler tubes.

I did not get much done yesterday on this build. I only managed to spray some paint the ebay bulk heads.

(insert photo here)

For many of my previous builds the sled was made from 1/8 ply. I would glue tubes on the bottom side of the slide through which the all-thread would pass. This gave the sled some stiffness. Here is an example.



I wanted to go in a different direction on this build. This time I wanted to fasten a small piece of aluminum angle on the bottom and drill holes through it for the all-tread to pass. When I did this using the 1/8 ply I found that the sled was too flexible. And so I upgraded it to 1/4", shown here.



This will be my first sled with redundant altimeters on it. Should be interesting.

Activities this past week limited how much work I could get done on this build. By the end of the week, I had managed to paint the sled and mount the two 9volt battery holders onto it

.

I'm not sure why, but here are a couple before and after photos of the motor tube being cut to size.

To make the two needed centering rings, I first made some practice holes in some cardboard.


Once I was satisfied that I had it sized correctly, I went ahead and cut out the motor mount holes in the bulkheads I made previously.


Looks good!


I then cut out a couple small pieces from a bulkhead defect and glued them onto the centering rings. These will be used for rail button attachment.

Looks like a great thread. Subscribed! Can't wait to see it come together.op:

Keep up the good work!

subscribed... and cant wait to see it in person!

Mr Rocket said:

Looks like a great thread. Subscribed! Can't wait to see it come together.op:

Keep up the good work!

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Thank you Sir.

Salvage-1 said:

subscribed... and cant wait to see it in person!

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Thanks Rob. This is one of several builds I have planed for our long winter break.

I printed out the fin templates from OpenRocket and then transferred them onto some poster paper.


Here are the wings drawn out on some 1/4 birch ply that I purchased at Michaels with a 50% off coupon.


And here are the fins cut out and match sanded.


I use a lot of techniques that I learned from qquake2k. I therefore have not documented those detail steps on this build. Jim is a craftsman.

After a two month hiatus, I'm back at it. It only took me two days to uncover my rocket shop out in the garage.
No photos from yesterday's work, but I marked out the fin and wing slots on the booster section.

One fin slot and one wing slot cut.
Photos of dry fit.

Looking good Chuck!
Now that you're flying redundant altimeters, you'll never want to use motor ejection again! :wink:

Motor ejection for tertiary backup deployment

Salvage-1 said:

Motor ejection for tertiary backup deployment

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Come on man, do you really need 3?

AlnessW said:

Come on man, do you really need 3?

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Yes! If 1 is good and two is better, three begins to approach perfection.

chuck5395 said:

Yes! If 1 is good and two is better, three begins to approach perfection.

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I guess perfection just comes at the cost of a lot of BP and ematches... Though in the grand scheme of things, small price to pay versus the cost of the entire build!

I have learned my lesson. My two stage "Wallace and Grommit" had a Raven in the top end, and a GWiz in the bottom end. For some reason BOTH failed and BOTH stages came in a little hard, earning me a double "desert dart" and "core sample" badge from the same flight.
IF i had kept the motor ejection charges in both stages, then I may have had a zipper due to the dro coming out x seconds after apogee, but I would still have both altimeters and the repair job would be a lot less.

AlnessW said:

I guess perfection just comes at the cost of a lot of BP and ematches... Though in the grand scheme of things, small price to pay versus the cost of the entire build!

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You don't use up an ematch for motor ejection. Just the BP that comes with the motor.

With all the slots cut, I did a quick dry fit of all the fins and wings

Question:
What do you guys fill the groves in Blue Tube with?

chuck5395 said:

You don't use up an ematch for motor ejection. Just the BP that comes with the motor.

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Oh I see, I thought you were talking about 2 redundant altimeters.
Dry fit looks good!

Fins and wings have been beveled.


Forward thrust ring epoxied in place.

chuck5395 said:

You don't use up an ematch for motor ejection. Just the BP that comes with the motor.

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I do after a motor charge failed. I also use two e match for one charge of bp just in case of e match failure. Redundancy is your friend.

Getmore said:

I do after a motor charge failed. I also use two e match for one charge of bp just in case of e match failure. Redundancy is your friend.

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Having backups in a good thing indeed. My standard is 2 separate charges, each with 1 ematch.

I used wood filler to fill the grove of the blue tube.

Very nice so far, very nice indeed--H

hornet driver said:

Very nice so far, very nice indeed--H

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Thank you H!

All three fins are now attached.