Retro Fit Rear Ejection Pod Mosquito - X-metal finished

The Rocketry Forum

Help Support The Rocketry Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Micromeister

Micro Craftman/ClusterNut
TRF Supporter
Joined
Jan 18, 2009
Messages
15,074
Reaction score
101
Location
Washington DC
One of our club members was cleaning out his built rocket stash getting ready for a move.
One was an Old rough looking Mosquito that apparently was found and turned in at one of our monthly sport launches. After a few months sitting in the lost and found box it little rocket made its way to an unused rockets box.
The Poor thing looked like it might have been a Cub Scouts hand Painted open grain balsa parts in yellow and blue.
Destined for the trash can I couldn't let that happen to a Mosquito. So I gave it a new home in my basement for a year or so.
Before the February club meeting I stumbled across it again as thought it was about time I did something with it. At the meeting I sanded down as much of the old paint as possible, CA soaked the balsa parts and sanded them as smooth as what was left of them would allow. I didn't try to straighten or relocate the one clearly out of place fin as it was positioned correctly to the airstream.

At home I built a 1" long slide in pod using a piece of T2+ tube and 3 Fliskits T2+ to T5 centering rings. I also hand cut a bottom stop ring from heavy cardstock. These were white glued to the motor mount with a 3/16" piece of T2 tube as a motor stop. to the outside of the forward Rings I filed a notch 180° apart and added a 1-1/2" loop of 49strand .018" Stainless Steel beading wire and 30" of 100lb braided Kevlar shockline. At the junction of the Kevlar and Beading wire 12" of 3/4" Red Military grade Teflon (PTFE) tape has been tied, baby powdered to serve as both protective Wadding and Drag-out Streamer. The free end of the 100lb Kevlar was passed through a center hole drilled through the BNC-5V balsa nosecone the end double figure 8 knotted and CA'ed permanently in place. A small recess in the end of the bullet nose allowed CA filling and sanding completely canceling the shockline anchor hole.

Now all the little bugger needed was refinishing. Starting with 3 good coat of brown cheapy auto primer, sanded to 360grit then given a base coat of gloss white and an over spray of Krylon X-metal Conversion primer. after allowing the conversion primer to dry 30 minutes the entire model was painted with X-Metal Red giving a Red Anodized appearance. To make is sparkle a bit I used some Silver metal flake adhesive backed vinyl on both sides of 2 fins.
After all that the model tips the scale at 6.6g which should give a Lift off mass of 7.7g.
Hope to fly this one this coming weekend if the darn weather will cooperate???

If you have old mosquitos laying around and you'd really like to fly them with a good chance of getting them back for another flight, this retrofit rear ejection scheme works out really well.

MM 294c01a_Mosquito rearEject MMX X-Metal Red & tape_03-14-14.jpg

MM 294c01b_Mosquito show RearEject Pod & Streamer_03-14-14.jpg
 
Last edited:
I built a fairly heavy Mid-power rocket that uses rear deployment by blowing out its motor mount around which the parachute is wrapped; much like your rocket.

It has been my experience that this type of deployment works best when the rocket is actually starting to arch over after losing all of its upward velocity.

The last thing you want to have happen is for the chute to pop out the back when the rocket still has a lot of upwards velocity, bad things will occur.

The second worst thing to have happen is for the chute to deploy just as the rocket losses all its upward velocity. The rocket then has a tendency to drop straight back down and through its chute.

Typically the above means you want to use a slightly longer delay than you would otherwise for a similar rocket using normal “Out the top” chute deployment.

And I like the sparkly fin appliqués.
 
Been Flying Rear ejection Models for Decades without any trouble at all. Particularly with Streamer recovery as with these very small light models.
Since we have NO option on delay with MMX motors it really has no influence on deployment. The Models are Almost Always Still going up at ejection.
Chute deployment on rear ejection models is a bit different. There a slightly longer delay is a good thing:)
 
I'm really Happy with Krylons X-Metal series "Anodized Like" finish.

For Model work it is critically important to first apply Krylon X-Metal Conversion Primer. it's a silvery metal flakey metallic under coat that allow the Transparent X-Metal colors to achieve that Deep Anodic like color. I couldn't find the conversion primer anywhere locally, ended up purchased a case of 6 cans from an Ace Hardware store in Florida. but it's been worth the trouble. Man these colors are awesome outside in the sunlight. Photos just do NOT do them justice. The only color I haven't yet used is Green. Blue, Purple, Yellow & Red are all outstanding rattle can colors over the Conversion primer or any Polished Metal, or chrome plated parts.

Special Paints_3of6 KrylonX-Metal (Anodized)_10-17-10.JPG
 
Last edited:
Just a thought,
Do you all think it is possible to "cluster" these?

Not really! Minimum Diameter Micro Maxx motor tubing (T2+) is .281" in diameter. Two T2+ motor mount tube just will not fit in a BT-5 (.544") diameter airframe without some major distortion. If you don't mind the aft end being deformed somewhat, or cutting out slots for the tubes to slide in it could be done but to be honest isn't worth the time. Two and Three motor micro clusters fit well in a BT-20 (.736") diameter outside airframe.
Hope this helps a little.
 
Back
Top