I may have a problem (Patriot downscale build)

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you gone have more a problem, when you gone have one like this and want a bigger one

patriot.jpg
 
I too build Patriots, and I have a problem...



Problem is my old decals are flaking off... So I'm building a booster, an up-powered clone, and adding a payload section...



Finishing details will have the new Patriot in Excelsior's reproductions of the originals with a set of 115% enlarged red/blue decals for the booster, and a 1/1 scale version of the Eagle (with a gold trim) for the booster's black fin. I've got the decals, now if I can summon the courage to actually apply them.

 
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It's not a real problem until it reach a full scale one. For now it's a very small problem
 
I had sort of a logical reason for building a Goony Patriot. This one, not so much. Well, there was some logic in building a cardstock rocket: Launch coming up in a week, two rockets in progress both held up by painting-unfriendly weather. I printed out a downscale Satellite Interceptor. And then I decided to design a downscale Patriot instead. For some reason.

This is my first cardstock rocket of my own design. In fact it’s my second cardstock rocket, and my first round one. The PDF file is here: View attachment 145089.

I drew it up in Intaglio, scaling measurements off my Estes Patriot by 33% to make the body tube accommodate a 13 mm motor. It could be built with a balsa or plastic BT-5 nose cone if you have one, or want to buy one, but I went purist and adapted the “Sprint Style” nose cone from Eric Truax’s 13mm nose cone pack (the nose cones; the instructions). The Sprint cone is a little too short so I used Matt Stum’s transition template to print some transitions that gave something closer to the right length. Some assembly required. Adaptation instructions in Cantonese. Batteries not included.

I printed the pattern onto 90 pound cardstock and got started. First the body tube.
View attachment 145090
Wait a minute, that’s not a tube.

I fixed that. I flipped it over, drew a line down the center, and wrote “glue” on the half behind the printed part because I have the attention span of a canary.
View attachment 145091

I rolled the piece over the edge of the workbench to start giving it a curve.
View attachment 145092
I applied glue stick to the “glue” half, and then rolled it around a couple of used 13mm motor casings.
View attachment 145093

Then I did the whole thing over again because the first time didn’t go so well. Second try was pretty good. I rubber banded it to my aluminum angle piece, with the seam against the aluminum, to hold it together for a while.
View attachment 145094
 
Next the fins. I cut the fin pieces out of the cardstock, not along the edges but outside the edges (not shown here). These are to be laminated with cereal box cardboard. Or actually Pop-Tarts box cardboard. I roughed up the printed side with 220 grit sandpaper.
View attachment 145096
Then I cut pieces of similar size and shape to one side of a fin. The leading edge was cut with a straightedge. The other edges, anything goes.
View attachment 145097
I used the back side of an Xacto blade to score the fold line for each fin (which will become the leading edge)
View attachment 145098
Then I put glue stick on one side, inserted the Pop-Tarts cardboard piece, put glue stick on the top of that, and folded the cardstock fin piece over it. I didn’t photograph any of that very well, sorry. The result is a cardstock-cardboard-cardstock lamination, with a fold along the leading edge and the other edges needing to be trimmed. I put these pieces between layers of wax paper and applied weight so they can get flat and happy.

Back to the body tube. I cut out the strip for the thrust ring, curled it up, and placed it (without glue) in the end of the body tube.
View attachment 145099
Then I glued the inner end down (here I used Alleene’s Tacky Glue) and made sure it wasn’t sticking to the body tube. Once it had set I pulled the thrust ring out and glued down the outer end. Then I applied glue inside the body tube, pushed the thrust ring in, and used a 13mm motor casing to push it forward far enough, with the motor sticking out a little.
View attachment 145100
Then I removed the motor casing, since gluing a used motor inside a rocket is considered bad form.

And then I remembered I’d intended to tie a piece of Kevlar to the thrust ring before installing it. Oh well, I’ll have to use some other way of attaching the Kevlar.
 
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OK, then came the fun part. The nose cone!

There are three pairs of transition patterns. The top one of each was cut out on the lines.
View attachment 145101
The bottom ones would become the gluing tabs. Here I’ve sketched how one would be cut out. The number and shape and size of triangles isn’t particularly critical.
View attachment 145102
Here are the three tabs cut out.
View attachment 145103
I also cut out the tip piece and cut notches about halfway into it. It looked pretty sketchy. I figured I’d probably have to redo this but decided not to decide until morning.
View attachment 145104

The tab for the tip piece along with the shoulder piece and strip “T” were cut out from Eric Truax’s original pattern.
View attachment 145105
Here are the tabs glued to their respective pieces.
View attachment 145106
 
Then the shoulder piece was rolled up and inserted into the body tube.
View attachment 145109
At this point I deviated from the nose cone instructions in part because I didn’t really understand them. Instead I made a pencil mark at the inner end.
View attachment 145110
I removed the shoulder piece from the body tube, unrolled it, and applied glue stick to the part left of the pencil mark. Then I rolled it up again, bringing the inner end back to the pencil mark and verifying it fit back into the body tube. I pressed the glued surfaces together with the handle of my hobby knife inserted into the ring.
View attachment 145111
Strip “T” was trimmed so it would fit around the shoulder with a gap just big enough for the first transition’s tab.
View attachment 145112
And it was glued on.
View attachment 145113
Next morning I decided the tip piece was indeed too ratty to use. I added some lines for cutting the notches to the drawing, since improvising those clearly wasn’t working, and cut out a new one. Then I joined up all three transitions and the tip.
View attachment 145114
Meanwhile I noticed the edge on the body tube was starting to pull up. I put Tacky Glue under the edge with a toothpick, and then rubber banded the body tube to the aluminum angle again for a while.
View attachment 145115
Here are the top three pieces, and bottom two pieces, of the nose cone glued together.
View attachment 145116
And here’s the whole thing. A bit rustic but I’m okay with it.
View attachment 145117
Here’s the nose cone on the body tube.
View attachment 145118
 
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I pulled the fins out from under the weight. The two sides are printed with different size quadrilaterals. The two on the left are small side up, the other two are big side up.
View attachment 145124
I trimmed along the edges on the small side. (In spite of everything, a couple of the fins had a little white showing on the other side. I went back to the drawing and made the big side a little bigger. Too late for me, though.) Then I put a bead of glue on the trailing and outer edges.
View attachment 145123

Next I glued the fins to the body tube. They’re only 1/32″ thick, so to use the Estes fin tool I put pieces of Pop-Tarts cardboard between the fins and the tool.
View attachment 145122

I cut out the launch lug piece, rolled it loosely around a 1/8″ rod, and glued it together.
View attachment 145121

Here’s the launch lug glued in place.
View attachment 145120

I added fillets on the fins and launch lug.
View attachment 145119
 
I made a 1″ x 10″ crepe paper streamer. I considered just going with nose blow recovery but decided to go with the streamer. It can always be removed.
View attachment 145134

Here’s where I paid the piper for forgetting to tie Kevlar to the thrust ring. I made a shock cord mount following an idea by James Jason Wentworth. Piece of bond paper 3/8″ by 2″, folded in half, with three holes poked:
View attachment 145133
Kevlar’s fed through and doubled back:
View attachment 145132
I glued the top half down to the bottom, applied glue to the side with the holes, then used a pencil with some tape around it, sticky side out, to maneuver the mount down into the body tube and press it down.
View attachment 145131
You can see it down in there. This is thinner than a tri-fold mount, which is good when you only have 13 mm to work with.
View attachment 145130
I reinforced the end of the tube with some CA. Then I tied on the streamer, rolled it up and put it in, put on the nose cone, and installed the biggest, meanest unused motor I ever intend to use on this thing: 0.625 newton-seconds of sheer muscle. No, really. Hold that thought.

Before adding nose cone weight, with a motor in place this thing is very tail heavy. It probably would’ve been smart to increase the fin size, but I didn’t. Probably would have been smart to make this an MMX, but I didn’t. So I have a 1/4A3T-3 in the back, and OpenRocket says the CG should be about 11 cm from the front. To get it there I had to add a little more than 3 grams of weight. I used clay. (Final weight of the rocket without motor was 8.2 g, of which 4.7 g was the nose cone.)

For a 1/2A or A, I would have had to go to more like 4 or 5 grams to get well over 1 caliber stability, which would be kind of nuts. Anyway, I have some 1/4As I have no other immediate use for. OpenRocket says the 1/4A3T-3 should take this up to 210 feet, and I’m good with that. A rocket this tiny, I’d probably lose sight of it if it went any higher. I may lose sight of it anyway. And if I’m ever sick of looking at it, OpenRocket says it’s still 1.0 calibers stable on an A3T-4 and will go to 880 feet.

So 1/4A it is, and after nearly filling the nose cone with clay and doing a quick swing test to verify stability, I tied a knot in the end of the Kevlar, buried it in the last part of the clay,
View attachment 145129
and put a layer of glue on top of that to hold it in. Well, that’s the theory.

And that’s about it. I did a little cleanup, and since this was printed on an inkjet printer it’ll definitely need a coat of clear, when and if we ever get painting weather again. Aside from that, it’s done. This version anyway. I might consider replacing the nose cone with a plastic or balsa one, or possibly even a redone paper one; this one’s definitely in the not bad for a first attempt category. Anyway, I’m pretty happy with this model. We’ll see if I’m still happy after launching it…

View attachment 145125View attachment 145126View attachment 145127
 
Never knew what Cardstock Rockets were til' this Thread, and even for most of the Thread I did'nt know. Then, when I saw you rolling your own Rocket! How cool is that?
In the OP I thought you had just made a Decal Sheet for a Patriot. Now I see that it is print your own Rocket.
 
Looks great, Rich!
It's probably best you went with a 13mm. A heavier BT-5 model is sometimes disappointing with MMX engines.
I've tried to do the BT-5 card stock nose cones but was never happy with the finished look.
But, had good results making BT-50 sized card stock nose cones. I've ended up replacing the smaller card stock nosecones with balsa.

I used to roll body tubes from 110 lb. card stock but now print most on 24 lb. stock and roll the skin over a BT-5.
It just ends up stronger and rounder. Glue sticks are perfect for these builds.
Just be sure to give it a good clear coat. I've had a few land on wet grass and the printer ink ran.

The cereal box laminated fins are stronger than you'd think! I've used that method for other LPR builds.

Great work! I've enjoyed the build.

More free cardstock models:
https://modelrocketbuilding.blogspot.mx/p/downscales-and-plans.html
 
Launched today on 1/4A3-3T. Great flight! I'm terrible at estimating altitudes; it simmed in OR at 205 feet. Flew straight, stayed in sight, streamer deployed, the only issue was whether anyone would step on it before I could find it in the grass.

Maybe sometime I'll work up the nerve to try a 1/2A on this. I might not lose sight of it.

Can you spot the Patriot in this picture?
View attachment 145734

There it is!
View attachment 145742

Launch sequence:
View attachment 145736View attachment 145737View attachment 145738View attachment 145739View attachment 145740View attachment 145741
 
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Where can I find photos of the Patriot with retro paint? I have a 1/2 scale and would like to paint it in retro colors. Thanks
 
I admit I didn't think in advance about finding the rocket on the ground, but the red streamer turned out to be a good idea if only for that purpose. Even in the short grass it was otherwise hard to spot.
 

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