Rocket Fin Guide for attachment?

It has come to my attention that there are some jigs or stands to assist a rocketeer with the holding, positioning, or attachment of fins to the central tube in your rocket.

While I have been working on simple rockets and used books stacked on a coffee table at first, I have graduated to a styrofoam egg carton to attempt to hold the rocket parallel to the floor or to balance the balsa fin vertically while the glue cures or at least thickens up.

I'm beginning to think that a formal stand may be a great help.
How many of you have such an Estes Fin Guide, and how essential do you feel it is?

I've looked around a little bit, and find NO USED items on the market. But I see at least two forms of this style of stand, brand new, for what I'd consider very high prices.

How about some guidance, guys? Do they even stock this at Hobby Lobby? Or similar stores?

As a very recent BAR enthusiast, I think I am very qualified to chime in on this. We never used anything like this back in the day, and I have to say having it now (just the inexpensive Estes jig) is fantastic. The ability to set and align the fins, push them flush, check their height on the tube position, run fillets all around, all simultaneously while the glue is beginning to set, is just brilliant. I did a spiral offset on the Delta booster the other day (so I couldn't use the jig) and I really missed it! Put you fins in overnight and wake to a nice perfect set. Get it and I predict you will not be sorry.

The Estes Jig is handy, but sometimes a pair of wooden rulers, one on either side of the fin, works pretty good too. Easy to keep the find die-straight along the body tube (I use a nosecone to get the fine centering of the rulers (put the point of the nosecone between the rulers)).

Sorry, GDJ, but I'm not quite tracking what your final sentence says. Can you reword it to clarify what you're doing with the rulers?

Let me try this out with ASCII code:

= is the rulers
+ is the fin
> is the nose cone
- is the gap between the rulers


==================================
++++++++++++++++ -------------------------------->
==================================




Kinda like that!

GOT IT!
Thanks, I appreciate the drawing...very clever!

I use the "Standard Rockets Assembly Tool" (www.standardrockets.com) and I love it. It is adjustable to any number of fins, body tube sizes and fin thicknesses. You don't even need to mark your body tubes. You set it up and glue all your fins on at once. It even has cradles that hold your rocket horizontal while you add fillets.

Thanks F.B. The only thing missing seems to be the price for the unit!

Yeah.... Sirius Rocketry was selling them at one time for about $85, but now I don't see them on the Sirius site. I'll look around and see if they are still available.

https://www.payloadbay.com/index.php?page=Tools&action=FINGUIDES


Print that out, cut it on some foam board, and put all your fins on at once in the perfect position :wink:


Braden

UPscaler said:

https://www.payloadbay.com/index.php?page=Tools&action=FINGUIDES


Print that out, cut it on some foam board, and put all your fins on at once in the perfect position :wink:


Braden

Click to expand...

This is what allot of us use.
I was certainly lost until someone posted it, just like here!
It's the only thing I've ever used.

JP

I have several different fixtures, but my favorite is still the Mk1 eyeball.

Having used Estes Plastic Fin attachment jig I HAD to find something that was a good bit more accurate in positioning and aligning fins.

A few years back I came up with the jigs shown below. Pretty cheap to make and Extremely accurate in positioning fins of any thickness fins (using the fin thickness spacing shim) on any size Body tube that will fit the groove.
Haven't used the larger jig on anything larger then BT-101 but both Standard and Micro versions are HOW I attach fins these days. Sure takes the fight out of parallel alignment.

I have the Estes jig and don't think it's that helpful. The rocket mount isn't very secure and as mine came it puts a slight cant in all the fins that I really didn't want (I realize a spinning rocket can be more stable, but I'm often trying to take video and I don't want the roll motion).

Ted Macklin's Guillotine Fin Jig is far superior and is sold by Apogee for $90. I can't say enough good things about this device. I got out the little guillotine jig yesterday for my kids for the first time and it says something about how great this device is that my five-year-old can now glue the fins on his rockets without my help (he shoos me away now) and he gets them perfectly straight. No more E2X kits in this house!

If you want to build your own you can buy plans from Ted Macklin (tmacklin on this forum) for an embarrassingly low price, and you should pay him his due. He is very helpful once you've bought the plans and deserves remuneration for his invention. Having said all that, I can tell you from experience that you won't save money building your own and it will probably end up costing more. You need a pretty good set of tools to make one with the required accuracy. If you enjoy making and using router templates and using your table saw, mitre saw, drill press, and a host of other tools you already own, than this project was quite fun. Ted did tell me that it was ok to make more than one for my own personal use, and so I am able to make a couple for my kids and probably end up breaking even or maybe paying just a little bit more than I would have...and of course I couldn't help but tinker with the design a bit....hopefully that will all be the subject of a future post.

Bill _/)_

+10 on Ted's jig. I had him make an extra large one for HPR where other solutions are bulky and cumbersome. Fins are dead arrow straight-kinda important at mach speeds. Great for anything from min dia birds to ridiculous 8" 'stumps'. Can't say enuff about how painless this is to use. Unsolicited spokesperson, but I can be bribed....

I will third support Ted's products.
I used his slotting jig, and added a pair of 4 ft long aluminum angle to it, converting it into a fin jig for large diameter rockets, in addition to it still be able to serve as a slotting jig.
Well designed, and well worth the $.
Greg

I to don't like the Estes Jig. Next time I need to do Fins I'll be Printing out one of the Printable Guides and giving that a try. I have a good Eye for Eyeballing Fins too.

TopRamen said:

I to don't like the Estes Jig. Next time I need to do Fins I'll be Printing out one of the Printable Guides and giving that a try. I have a good Eye for Eyeballing Fins too.

Click to expand...

I don't know if you know, but you have to cut slots in the tube and have tabs on the fins. Then use the fin guide to hold everything in the proper place while the glue dries or the epoxy cures.

Once everything is cut to specs. the Fin Guide works great.

TopRamen said:

I to don't like the Estes Jig. Next time I need to do Fins I'll be Printing out one of the Printable Guides and giving that a try. I have a good Eye for Eyeballing Fins too.

Click to expand...

Tried them. Work pretty good as long as you cut out the area's very precisely. I printed them off, glued them to some 1/4" foam board. Hold the fins very securely.


Tales of deeds shouted out from thee pocket parrot iPhone on th' seas of rocketry forum!

I modified my Estes fin fixture about thirty years ago using a 1/2" bolt. Works fine now. Somewhere, I think it was here on TRF, I saw a thread doing a much better job of a very similar mod. Can't find it now.

Many year back I modified my Estes Fin Jig using CA Soaked motor casings and a few other "additions".

While it worked much better the fact that the vertical plate offsets only allowed for 3/32" or 1/8" made using thinner fin materials a hastle having to add shims. While these modifications helped the inherient flaws in the design lead to inventing other more precision ways of attaching & aligning fins as seen in an earlier post.

mikemech said:

I modified my Estes fin fixture about thirty years ago using a 1/2" bolt. Works fine now. Somewhere, I think it was here on TRF, I saw a thread doing a much better job of a very similar mod. Can't find it now.

Click to expand...

I did a mod thread here:

https://www.rocketryforum.com/showt...nment-Guide-simple-mods-for-improved-accuracy