Rocketry Works Toobish XL Build

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With a little help from the community, the next build is going to be the Toobish XL by Rocketry Works.

Unfortunately, Rocketry Works has recently closed their doors. When I heard they were closing up I jumped at the chance to put in one more order and managed to get my hands on this kit. Sadly, this is the last of their kits that I have in the build pile. Still have a ton of their centering rings, fins kits, nose cones etc. etc. that will help me build rockets for many years but no more kits. I enjoyed working with them over the years, had a few conversations with the owner and did a couple of custom setups of rings and fins for various projects. They will be missed, so lets get started on one last kit.


Parts list.

Main tube is a BT70 that is 17" long.
The nose cone 3D printed and 5.5" long.
Tube fins are cut from BT70 coupler stock so they are slightly smaller in DIA than the main tube. Each tube is 4" long with an angle on both the top and bottom.
The motor tube is 29mm and is 6" long.
Centering rings are 1/8 ply.
A 29mm, 3D printed motor retainer and 24mm to 29mm motor adapter is also included.
Shock cord is a 9ft of what looks to be 350 or 400# Kevlar.
Parachute is 15" plastic with sewn in shroud lines.
Launch lugs are 3D printed and 3/16" rod.

Fist impressions is that this is a very nice kit. Everything appears to be nicely cut. I am questioning why the tube fins are made of coupler and not body tube. They are a touch heavier wall so that might have been the reasoning. I'm expecting an easy assembly.

 

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Starting this build with the motor mount. The centering rings that are included have various provisions for T-Nuts, eye bolts etc. The idea is that you will fill in the cut lines with glue or epoxy if you don't use that option. To begin the assembly, I removed the outer layer of the tube where the upper ring us going to be attached and marked the location of the lower ring based on the length of the motor retainer.



Starting with the lower ring, I positioned the ring using the motor retainer then tacked the ring in place with two drops of CA and allowed that to cure.

The upper ring was attached at the same time and the CA was left to dry for a few minutes.



The motor retainer was installed next. The retainer has a number of small holes in it that are designed to allow glue to bond into the piece. The instructions state that these are designed for use with wood glue. I decided not to tempt fate and installed using epoxy. The mating surfaces were sanded with 100 grit prior to assembly.





Here we have the completed motor mount with fillets completed. I also wiped some wood glue over the unused slots in the rings. I'll do another coat before final assembly.



Last piece of the motor mount assembly is attaching the Kevlar shock cord. This appears to be around 400# Kevlar and is a touch over 9ft long. For this I punched out one of the holes in the upper ring, passed the Kevlar through the hole then tied a knot. Glue was placed on the knot to prevent it from coming loose.



Here is the finished mount. I slid some heat shrink over the first couple of inches of Kevlar for a little extra protection.



That was set aside and allowed to cure over night. Today I'm going to begin attaching the tube fins to the body tube.

This should be really easy, quick build.

 

[Hobie1dog]

Thanks for all the pictures this looks like it's going to be a great rocket. What paint scheme are you going to use?

 

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Thanks for all the pictures this looks like it's going to be a great rocket. What paint scheme are you going to use?

I have a couple of ideas in mind. Haven't finalized a design yet but I need to make up my mind as this one is getting close. I'll be posting an update on the build shortly. It's going together really quickly.

 

[Back_at_it]

I managed to get all of the tube fins installed yesterday. The tubes come precut with angles on both the top and bottom. These are laser cut and look pretty good. There are a couple of them that are not 100% aligned with the opposite side but they are all close enough.

To begin, I marked the body tube as if I was installing six normal fins. I did this as the tube fins are slightly smaller than the diameter of the body tube so they need to be spaced evenly around the tube. If I butt them up against each other I will end up with about a 1/4" gap between the last two tubes. I also decided that I wanted the fins moved forward slightly for aesthetics so I marked a line 1/4" from the rear of the tube.

The tubes were sanded and the first two tubes were installed with only TBII.



Next came a couple of quick fillets of the first two tubes.



Here is where I had to get creative. I won't be able to add fillets to additional tubes so I decided that I needed to do the fillet in one shot. To do this decided to use both TBII and Thick and Quick.

TBII was used on the body tube and worked into the fibers of the tube with a paint brush. I then added a thicker bead of thick and quick to the tube fin. When attached, it created the bond and the fillet in one.



Continued on with tubes four and five.



Before adding the sixth and final tube fin, I stopped and attached the launch lugs. These are 3D printed as well and like the motor retainer are designed to be be installed with wood glue. SO naturally I used epoxy The Attachment points were sanded with 100 grit before applying the epoxy.



Next came the sixth and final tube fin.



After letting the tube fins dry for a while I came back and added the forward launch lug. The location was marked on the tube, sanded then the lug was attached using more epoxy.



The lugs were lined up using an old 3/16 launch rod and left to cure.



While that was drying I started sanding the nose cone. Since this is 3D printed it did have some ridges but they are very small so this was an easy prep. A few minutes with some 100 grit then 320 and it's ready for primer. The fitment in the tube is tight so I will need to address that but at a later time.

 

[Back_at_it]

More progress on this build. After letting everything cure for day it was time to connect the tube fins to each other. Due to their size there is a small gap between each tube. To join these I spread TBII between two of the tubes then used some tape to hold them together. I did this on opposite sides so that all of the tubes wouldn't be pulled in one direction.



With the tubes attached and fillets completed, we get our first look at the assembled rocket.



When looking at the nose cone I was a little concerned about the attachment point for the shock cord. I know that 3D printed plastic isn't the strongest stuff in the world and I felt like the attachment point was a touch on the thin side. I'm probably over thinking this but I decided to sand the crossbar and areas around it inside the cone and do a light coat of epoxy for a little extra strength. Once the epoxy had cured I drilled a 1/8" hole in the epoxy for the shock cord.



Thankfully the weather has cooperated so I was able to shoot on two coats of SEM high build primer. After letting that cure for a couple of hours, I filled the spirals and some imperfections in the body tube with DAP brand wood filler then sanded with 400 grit. At this point the main rocket body is ready for paint.



I have a paint scheme in mind that will begin with painting the inside of the tubes. Hoping to start on that tonight.

 

[Hobie1dog]

Nice progress, thanks for the pictures

 

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Weather was nice yesterday and I was able to get some painting done. Started with the nose cone. Simple gloss black.



Next came painting the inside of the tube fins. These were painted bright red. Only way to do this is by hand so it was a little time consuming.

Main body was painted krylon gun metal metallic.




After letting that dry over night, I got up this morning and prepped for the final color. The painted areas were masked off. Next l hand painted the areas between the tubes with gloss black. There is no way you’ll be able to get spray paint down there so more hand painting was needed.

Currently the rocket is prepped and waiting for the sun to come up so I can paint the outside of the tube fins.

 

[86mustang408w]

Nice, my L1 was made partly by James @ RW.


Very cool..

 

[Hobie1dog]

What brand of paint did you use?

 

[Back_at_it]

What brand of paint did you use?

Krylon for everything except primer. Primer was SEM high build

 

[Back_at_it]

Painting is complete. I managed to get the tube fins painted yesterday afternoon. Two coats of Krylon Gloss Black were sprayed on about 15 mins apart.




Going to cut some vinyl for some stripes and figure out a font for the name. Should have this one wrapped up tonight.

 

[DigBaddy]

Fantastic!!! That turned out really nice. Great scheme.

 

[Back_at_it]

With this weekends launch cancelled, I’m spending some time wrapping up old projects.

I managed to finish the vinyl on the Toobish today.

Calling this one done