Late night epiphany, Gemini Titan style

[novahobbies]

Just came to realize: a 1/100 scale Gemini Titan would be SUPER easy to build. At 3m diameter and 33m tall, you can use an apogee thick wall motor mount tube (29mm id, 30.7mm od) and it would be close enough for eyeball scale at 1:100 and the detail parts are all available on Thingiverse, including even a fin adapter. You'd just have to scale it. OAL would be about 13 inches tall.......hmm. I smell a new scratchbuild!

 

[Hobie1dog]

Just came to realize: a 1/100 scale Gemini Titan would be SUPER easy to build. At 3m diameter and 33m tall, you can use an apogee thick wall motor mount tube (29mm id, 30.7mm od) and it would be close enough for eyeball scale at 1:100 and the detail parts are all available on Thingiverse, including even a fin adapter. You'd just have to scale it. OAL would be about 13 inches tall.......hmm. I smell a new scratchbuil

GO FOR IT

 

[novahobbies]

GO FOR IT

Going! Placed an order for the 29mm motor mount tubes (with some extras for future conversions) and picked up a couple nylon parachutes to replace some aging Estes ones, too. I've got the nose cone scaled properly and I'll print that in resin for detail. I haven't sorted out the engine mount fin can / display nozzle retainer system yet, but I'll figure it out. I'm leaning on keeping things super light and using 13mm motors. I don't want to send this to the stratosphere, I just want a fun little low level zipper that's in-scale with the Saturn family.

 

[bjphoenix]

I have the original Estes Gemini Titan. I didn't build it with the plastic fins, I was pretty young and didn't think I could do a good job with them. I've been wanting to replace its shock cord and launch it again.
I don't think it would be very hard to clone that kit these days, all of the parts are still available, except maybe the capsule itself but maybe that is available from BMS. It will fly pretty well on a pair of B motors, not real high.

 

[novahobbies]

I have the original Estes Gemini Titan. I didn't build it with the plastic fins, I was pretty young and didn't think I could do a good job with them. I've been wanting to replace its shock cord and launch it again.
I don't think it would be very hard to clone that kit these days, all of the parts are still available, except maybe the capsule itself but maybe that is available from BMS. It will fly pretty well on a pair of B motors, not real high.

All the hardware including the capsule is freely available on Thingiverse for 3d printing, and the directions are also online, so yeah.....if someone wanted to clone the original they totally could! I'm using some of those 3d files but scaling down to 1/100 using a 29mm motor tube as the actual body.
Also for those interested, the Boyce Aerospace Gemini is great fun to build. It's bigger than the old estes version and uses a BT-80 for the main tubes, plus it's a dual cluster.

 

[markschnell]

Take a look at this thread about a 1/100 GT. Especially from post 28 and beyond.

 

[JPalmer621]

Boyce and Balsa have BT 70 capsules. I have cloned Gemini using this size. I know they make the BT 80 also. Mine have two motor clusters. Flys well

 

[novahobbies]

Boyce and Balsa have BT 70 capsules. I have cloned Gemini using this size. I know they make the BT 80 also. Mine have two motor clusters. Flys well

I have the Boyce BT-80. Mine did NOT fly well on 2 super-C motors, but it did fly. And it was recovered, so no complaints.
But my excitement still rests on doing this little thing in 100 scale. I'll be printing the nose cone tonight. The body tubes and motor mount tubes are on their way.
Here's my Boyce model before she went horizontal. One motor fired a fraction of a second after the other, and the wind caught it just right for a nice little ride about 20 feet above the ground on a parallel trajectory....but grateful for no significant damage!

 

[JPalmer621]

Mine from Balsa Machining

 

[novahobbies]

Got pretty much all the ordered parts in last night, and most of the printed parts are ready to go. The static display rocket engines stuck to the fep and did not print, but I can redo those in a jiffy. I'll also be reprinting the fin can in clear PLA+ instead of resin for lots of obvious reasons as soon as my 10-day print job is finished, but I printed one in resin as a mock-up so I can see what I need to do.
At it's core, it's a very straightforward 4F&ANC build. The parts I printed fit perfectly in the 29mm body tube. My only concern right now is keeping this as light as possible so I can lift it with something like an A10-3T. I'd prefer not to scale up to an 18mm motor mount if I can avoid it.