My wife bought me a kit. An Estes Super Neon XL. It was on sale from Estes for $9.
It is a 36" machine that they recommend either D or E series motors.
After we got it, I realized it was too complicated for something that will probably get lost in our woods after the first launch. We recently have launched 3 old homebuilts with C6's, loosing two and sticking one in a tree.
I compromised by not installing the 6 tubes around the base and cutting out my own fins larger but in the same style as the ones in the plans but making only 3 instead of 6.
I put some vertical lines with my 1"x1" angle iron. Punched a few holes at the insertion point so that the Elmer's wood glue would stick better. My new fins are 3/32" thickness and temporarily held on with some straight pins. The area of each fin is about 4x the area of one of original fins. Of course I am not using the extra rings or the 6 original fins.
Once it cured I made some micro with the same glue and made fillet to improve the strength of the fin and to possibly decrease interference drag.
Basically micro spherical balls that displace the glue and decrease it's weight. I have not tried using it with wood glue before today. Seems to work. It can be smoothed with a wet finger even when fairly dry.
I got the 24mm motor mount installed and it weighs 100 grams. Still needs some finishing and paint. I got some hot pink/hunter orange type of color.
We looked for an alarm so that we might better find it, once launched, but came up negative.
I'll post more pics later.
It is a 36" machine that they recommend either D or E series motors.
After we got it, I realized it was too complicated for something that will probably get lost in our woods after the first launch. We recently have launched 3 old homebuilts with C6's, loosing two and sticking one in a tree.
I compromised by not installing the 6 tubes around the base and cutting out my own fins larger but in the same style as the ones in the plans but making only 3 instead of 6.
I put some vertical lines with my 1"x1" angle iron. Punched a few holes at the insertion point so that the Elmer's wood glue would stick better. My new fins are 3/32" thickness and temporarily held on with some straight pins. The area of each fin is about 4x the area of one of original fins. Of course I am not using the extra rings or the 6 original fins.
Once it cured I made some micro with the same glue and made fillet to improve the strength of the fin and to possibly decrease interference drag.
Basically micro spherical balls that displace the glue and decrease it's weight. I have not tried using it with wood glue before today. Seems to work. It can be smoothed with a wet finger even when fairly dry.
I got the 24mm motor mount installed and it weighs 100 grams. Still needs some finishing and paint. I got some hot pink/hunter orange type of color.
We looked for an alarm so that we might better find it, once launched, but came up negative.
I'll post more pics later.