Making Repairs......

All of us have had a crash or two: You know, chute got tangled and didn't open, broken or burnt shockcord and our pride and joy landed on the parking lot even though we thought it would never drift that far. A thud, pieces went flying and you couldn't hardly bear to look. The first thing you think about is: Can it be fixed? Wouldn't it be interesting and helpful to all to hear about less than perfect flights and what kind of repairs were made to get our rocket back into action? We all like to talk about construction and flawless flights but repairing is a very large part of our sport. Got a story? Share it with all of us.

Swimmer

Being a relatively new BAR, I had some repairs to do thios summer to my newly rediscovered vintage model rockets after 20 years, 2 attics, and a moving company got ahold of them. (I was away at college at the time). Henway, I am now a complete and total CA fanatic. I have used the thin stuff to seep into body tube dents, and reinforce old crumbly fins. I find the el-cheapo gel good for re-attaching broken fins as well. I still fly all of my vintage rockets, including a Mars Lander, a Maxi V-2, and an Interceptor. The only real modification that I have made is to replace all of the old rubber band shock chords with elastic.

I also always bring CA to my flights... and am able to re-attach fins, and und-bend body tubes in the field.

After my last crash on asphalt of my Estes Black Brant II I noticed a split along the spiral about an inch above the fins. I could put pressure on both side of the split and it would open up. I got some thin CA, opened the split just a little and let the CA seep into the split. Holding it closed until the adhesive set the split is repaired. I was also able to get CA on the inside of the tube for extra strength

Swimmer

Lets see, I've rebuilt or recycled most of my damaged rockets, save those that are MIA. I've used CA to repair zippers. I've replaced sections of tubing, up to and including the whole tube. I've re-glued tons of fins. I've inserted sections of coupler to strengthen weak spots and to replace the fried back end of my Archer after the Krushnik held it on the pad. Most recently, I made repairs to the tube of my much-repaired Mean Machine using duct tape. Works good and lasts a long time (well, the latter statement is yet to be proven)

I'm sure there is more, just can't think of them off the top of my head.

If you go to this thread, on a proposed idea for FlisKits, you can see (about mid-way down) how I repaired massive damage to the proto-type caused by my new puppy... *S*

https://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1486

The model had the forward end of the body tube all chewed up and all 4 wings chewed, some with the tips totally eaten.... sheesh!

I would rather feed a rocket to the dog once in a while than have the mess that I do
my wife's three little 'darling' dogs poop and pee all over the place (and she says that they're housebroken) -- makes for a special thrill when walking through the house in the dark

the purist in me refuses to ever forget that one of my babies has been injured
after crunching something, repairs just don't ever seem (to me) to make it 'like new' again, and I am always wondering how much higher it would have gone without all that extra splicing/gluing/putty/paint
aside from the sleepless nights, I find it just plain easier and faster to rebuild from scratch -- yeah, I recycle a nose cone or something if it's not too badly banged up
but the really hard landings do too much damage for my liking
(anybody ever figured out where the pavement-seeking-electronics are hidden in a mod-roc?)

I'm sure you guys will not be suprised when I tell you that I usually don't repair. I trash 'em. The only exception is the AT Mirage. She has been built again no less than 5 times. But the only rockets I managed to get back crunced, 1 was charcoaled in the motor mount and unusable except for parts, and 1 went to Ken Parker for parts. The rest were fed to the rocket gods...

Yep, I can vouch for that - no one makes bigger or more regular contributions to the Rocket Gods than Phil. He regularly tithes to that religion.

That's why I like to launch with Phil. He feeds the Rocket Gods so much .... (Johnny Carson takeoff here... ) "HOW MUCH?" ...so much that I don't have to worry about feeding them anything !!! What a deal !!!!

Plus, like Phil said, I get a lot of the "crunched" parts.... another nice side benefit.