ACR PSR 1824 Build Thread

Great build thread. I'm late to the party, but I can offer some launch and recovery tips...

I built this rocket in 2008 and have flown it about once a year since then, always on A8-3s and a D12-7. It's a great kit, and a crowd pleaser!

While I used the old Estes igniters in the early flights, Quest Q2G2s are the way to go. I tested every igniter before and after installation, and I used a long lead clip whip to give the motors every chance to light.

Staging will occur lower than you expect because the A8-3s don't get to coast. Figure 200' AGL. The ejection charge goes off in time to get the streamers out, but only just. The boosters should recover very close to the pad.

The core, on the other hand, will go quite high, as you'd expect from a light little rocket on a big motor. I use a small chute with a big spill hole and only launch on big field in calm winds. Use a long delay and a long shock cord--an Estes dent is a real possibility given the difficulty of timing the delay.

Good luck!
Launch pic: https://www.rocketreviews.com/advanced-rocketry-corporation---1824-psr.html

Nice to have the NAR president add to one's post.

Good News/Bad News:
Good News: The weather is getting warmer
Bad News: The Weather is getting wetter all week.

I've also decided to go with black nose cones on the boosters. The orange/white roll pattern on the nose turned out to be a bigger pain than imagined.

Any updates on the paint? I remember having to sand down in spots to get the slide right.

No updates. I touched up a stripe the other day but noting further. The sustainer rests above my head, the boosters to my right. They mock me. If World of Tanks continues to abuse me the way it has been of late, I'll get some stuff this 3-day Memorial weekend. I also need to head up to my local flying field and burn up 4 18mm motors for drop testing.

Those WWII Tank an Aircraft simulation programs do look very addicting and so far I have not fallen into the trap. Time to squeeze out of the virtual commanders copula and get outside for some parallel staging fun! The 18/24 will not defeat you like that King Tiger just did!

I worked on the booster nose cones and just a bit of paint on the sustainer. Winds were up to were I would not have felt comfortable doing it had they been blowing any harder. I had to strip orange paint off of two of the booster cones and paint them all black. I painted one sustainer fin and the transition black. I decided to go black as this area is going to get nasty with ejection gasses. I did find large pits in one booster nose cone and the sustainer nose cone. I had to fill and sand those down. I have no clue as to how they got there.

I gave the sustainer nose one coat of white and it showed that I need to go back over it with a touch more filler.

Honey-do permitting, I'll have orange on the sustainer this coming weekend.

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I have orange on the sustainer now. The lazy come in when I just went to paint two orange stripes on the sides and then I rotated the payload/nose section to simulate a roll pattern. I'm going to blacken two segments of the nose cone and have it very Polaris A-3 looking. I painted 1 already. I'll give it a couple of days and paint the other side. I've got my Bare Metal Foil ready to go for simulated equipment sections.

And I managed to pick up a couple of new build supervisors. I'm finding no problem getting sloppy work by them.

Careful with the paint--too much makes it harder to connect all the boosters. The tolerances are pretty tight.

Ted Cochran said:

Careful with the paint--too much makes it harder to connect all the boosters. The tolerances are pretty tight.

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Oh, definitely. Daddyisabar warned me about that. I kept the paint where the boosters and sustainer meet to a minimum. I can plan on doing separation tests next week.

Also, be especially careful with the center motor ignition, obviously. If it doesn't light, bad things happen....

Two pics to whet your appetite.

Just a light sand with 400 grit does the job, just enough to take the sticky sheen off the paint surface. Yep, the PSR18/24 loves those Q2G2s. It is just an ignition issue with this one. The A8 3's rip it off the pad nice and quick, The popping of ejection charges at lower altitude is cool with all the little bits fluttering down from the sky, the crowd goes wild. The rest goes real high and it a great place to use all those D12 7s folks have laying around. Putting the D12 0 booster on with three B6's is a bit crazy but good medicine for the altitude junkie.

I painted everything in flat finishes. I read somewhere that flats make the fluorescents stand out better.

Great pics Ted.

Next up will be turning the forward the forward mounting pins.

If you used Rusto Fluorescent I would not coat it with flat clear coat. It is already as flat and bright as is gets. Any clear coat will make is less brilliant and shiny. No stinkin' clear coat for the PSR 18/24. If you got a finish like the photo with Rusto Flourescent then you are the man! Leave well enough alone. Carefully tape it off and flat clear coat the rest if you want, and sand again, and again.

I'm not dead yet. I did move out of my house. In doing so, I had to pack all of my hobby stuff away. When I packed away the 1824 my wife dropped something heavy into the box and crimped the main body tube. Major repair ahead. Anyway, my slab got poured just before the new year so it looks like the house will be ready sometime in March.

I did pick up a grand daughter on 9-9-16.

judo said:

I did pick up a grand daughter on 9-9-16.

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Congrats to the whole family!

Well, I'm finally in my new house. Don't ask. The ARC is still packed away in a box somewhere. The last time I saw it the wife dropped some object on it and bent the main body tube. I hope its fins remained more cruciform than my scratch doorknob did.

Well, granddaughter number 2 is 6 months old at this point. I'm expecting a cash influx over the summer. I'm going to drop a couple of hundred on a window AC unit for my shed. That may get this build restarted. I need a new photo hosting site.