Nathan
☢
- Joined
- Apr 19, 2012
- Messages
- 2,230
- Reaction score
- 755
Back in February I was contacted by Trip Barber and asked if I would do the paint job on a tribute rocket that had been built for Joe Egan. Joe Egan was the lead attorney who won the 9 year long court case in the lawsuit filed against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives by Tripoli and NAR. If they hadn't won that case, the hobby of high power rocketry would probably not exist today. Unfortunately, Joe Egan died in 2008 shortly before they won the case. Joe Egan was also an avid rocketry enthusiast and had been in the process of building a big rocket when he died. Last year Joe Egan's family still had the parts of his unfinished rocket and contacted Trip Barber, asking if he would use the parts to complete the rocket and fly it as a tribute to Joe Egan. Trip built the tribute rocket, using Joe's original parts along with parts that were contributed by others from across the rocketry community. The decals were contributed by Mark Hayes from Stickershock.
I was honored to be asked to be part of this project and have the opportunity to apply my painting skills to this important rocket. The Joe Egan Tribute Rocket will be flown at the TARC National Finals in May with members of Joe Egan's family in attendance, and then will also be flown at NSL later in the month.
Here is how the rocket looked when it was given to me to paint.
Before I got it, it had been flown unpainted at Battlepark for initial flight test. The test flight went well but it had some minor fin damage from that flight that I had to repair first. I also cleaned up the fin fillets with a layer of Bob Smith 15 minute epoxy mixed with microballoons, then sanded.
The PML airframe tube had hand-laid fiberglass that was a little rough, so my first step before painting was to give the entire rocket a glaze coat of Bondy putty. I applied the Bondo putty with a spreader and then sanded with 120 grit sandpaper.
Here's how it looked after sanding the Bondo.
I gave it two coats of lacquer primer, sanding the first primer coat with 220 grit and the second primer coat with 400 grit.
Here is how it looked after the primer was done. (Yes, that is a vintage 1971 Honda CT70 Mini Trail in the background.)
I was asked to paint it using the school colors of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where Joe Egan (and also Trip Barber) went to school. They asked for it to be gray with red nose cone and red on the tips of the fins. These are the colors I picked. The red isn't perfect but was as close as I could get. The paint is Restoration Shop lacquer from TCP Global.
After spraying two coats of red lacquer.
After masking the fin tips and spraying two coats of gray lacquer. Yeah, I know, the gray paint is the exact same color as the primer. Gray is not a color I would choose to paint a rocket but that's what they wanted.
After removing the masking.
Applying the decals.
After spraying the clear coat. It got four coats of clear lacquer.
Now the fun part starts: Wet sanding and polishing. I wet sanded with 1000 grit sandpaper, then wet sanded again with 2000 grip sandpaper. That is about 8 hours of sanding by hand. Here is how the nose looked after wet sanding.
I polished with rubbing compound using a power polisher and a medium cut pad. Then I polished again with finishing polish and a light cut pad. Then I waxed it with Chemical Guys carnauba car wax.
DONE!!! The entire process took me about 35 hours over the course of five weeks. I weighed the rocket before and after and the paint job added 1.6 lb to the weight of the rocket, although some of that was the Bondo and epoxy. Here are some pics of the finished rocket.
And here are Trip Barber and me when I delivered the finished rocket to him at Battlepark yesterday.
I was honored to be asked to be part of this project and have the opportunity to apply my painting skills to this important rocket. The Joe Egan Tribute Rocket will be flown at the TARC National Finals in May with members of Joe Egan's family in attendance, and then will also be flown at NSL later in the month.
Here is how the rocket looked when it was given to me to paint.
Before I got it, it had been flown unpainted at Battlepark for initial flight test. The test flight went well but it had some minor fin damage from that flight that I had to repair first. I also cleaned up the fin fillets with a layer of Bob Smith 15 minute epoxy mixed with microballoons, then sanded.
The PML airframe tube had hand-laid fiberglass that was a little rough, so my first step before painting was to give the entire rocket a glaze coat of Bondy putty. I applied the Bondo putty with a spreader and then sanded with 120 grit sandpaper.
Here's how it looked after sanding the Bondo.
I gave it two coats of lacquer primer, sanding the first primer coat with 220 grit and the second primer coat with 400 grit.
Here is how it looked after the primer was done. (Yes, that is a vintage 1971 Honda CT70 Mini Trail in the background.)
I was asked to paint it using the school colors of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where Joe Egan (and also Trip Barber) went to school. They asked for it to be gray with red nose cone and red on the tips of the fins. These are the colors I picked. The red isn't perfect but was as close as I could get. The paint is Restoration Shop lacquer from TCP Global.
After spraying two coats of red lacquer.
After masking the fin tips and spraying two coats of gray lacquer. Yeah, I know, the gray paint is the exact same color as the primer. Gray is not a color I would choose to paint a rocket but that's what they wanted.
After removing the masking.
Applying the decals.
After spraying the clear coat. It got four coats of clear lacquer.
Now the fun part starts: Wet sanding and polishing. I wet sanded with 1000 grit sandpaper, then wet sanded again with 2000 grip sandpaper. That is about 8 hours of sanding by hand. Here is how the nose looked after wet sanding.
I polished with rubbing compound using a power polisher and a medium cut pad. Then I polished again with finishing polish and a light cut pad. Then I waxed it with Chemical Guys carnauba car wax.
DONE!!! The entire process took me about 35 hours over the course of five weeks. I weighed the rocket before and after and the paint job added 1.6 lb to the weight of the rocket, although some of that was the Bondo and epoxy. Here are some pics of the finished rocket.
And here are Trip Barber and me when I delivered the finished rocket to him at Battlepark yesterday.
Last edited:
