The FLYING MACHINE (Apogee Components) themed (Back To The Future III) rocket build log

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My Doc Brown’s FLYING TIME MACHINE build log: today I was looking for more pictures of the “Train” and found a detailed model of the flight version which is more complete than what I had been looking at. I have some good starts to added features to my rocket. Today I created the Flux Capacitor fueled thrusters by first making a paper template. Once I was happy with that I got my box of scrap balsa wood out and selected a piece of 1/8” sheet. Then I took apart the paper template and traced that to the balsa sheet. I cut the test wood version out and taped it together for a test fit. It looked good so I used this wood now as a template to replicate three more sets. I glued them together and sanded them down including sanding the curvature of the tube into the bottom of each so that it would sit flush when mounted. Then each received three louvers made from balsa. Thin CA glue was then put over the entire external surface area to reinforce the louvers and to seal the balsa. They were sanded again and temporarily taped in place. These will be painted separately from the rocket and later permanently installed after all paintwork has been completed on the rocket. 😎🚀🚀🚀
 

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The Doc Brown’s FLYING TIME MACHINE build log: today we made a trip to town and scored some cool things to add to this project. I mocked up the Flux Capacitor housing in paper and trial fit. It went through two paper trials before I went for the balsa. Got the housing built and sanded including the clear cover (it looks blue because that’s a temporary protective covering. The board (1/32” ply) that houses the Flux Capaciter was made, laid out and then components temporarily installed. The 1/8” wood dowels are placeholders only as I have fluorescent green acrylic rods coming this week. All the hardware will come out until I can paint the housing. Then I will make final installation of the Flux Capcitor parts. Just like the extra thrusters I made this will stay separate until the entire rocket has been painted then these parts will be attached. 🥰🚀🚀🚀
 

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Make sure to verify your weight, CG and CP prior to flying if adding the extras. It will add overall weight and a good amount of drag. You can get the sim file on the APOGEE website use on openrocket or rocksim.
 
The Doc Brown’s FLYING TIME MACHINE build log: today I worked more on detailing the parts of the flux capacitor including adding wiring coming out of the forward portion of the housing. The wooden ball transformers will be eventually glued down to the rocket. The housing also will get a clock and a couple of gears per side. Then I mounted the telegraph communications system just above the portholes. Some wire will be twisted around both connecting the two. Should have the colored acrylic 1/8” rods on Thursday. 🥰🚀🚀🚀
 

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All you have to do is keep the Greebles roughly in balance. Easy to put more stuff on the bottom, what I call junk in the trunk. Up front is a little more dicey but doable. A flat crown cow catcher a top the nose cone would be ok. A funnel fin offset with wheels, pistons or drive rods might result pained looks or stink eyes from the 3-4FNC purists, but that is also ok. A nice bell would be cool. Even some movie elements like an unfinished piece of Railroad track sticking off the end of the launch rail would be cool, just for looks if you are using a rail.

This nose configuration worked fine for me but it is about 70 years in the future.
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All you have to do is keep the Greebles roughly in balance. Easy to put more stuff on the bottom, what I call junk in the trunk. Up front is a little more dicey but doable. A flat crown cow catcher a top the nose cone would be ok. A funnel fin offset with wheels, pistons or drive rods might result pained looks or stink eyes from the 3-4FNC purists, but that is also ok. A nice bell would be cool. Even some movie elements like an unfinished piece of Railroad track sticking off the end of the launch rail would be cool, just for looks if you are using a rail.

This nose configuration worked fine for me but it is about 70 years in the future.
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Thanks for the tips! Yours is awesome! 🥰🚀🚀🚀
 
My Doc Brown’s FLYING TIME MACHINE rocket build log: I was able to get a little done on this tonight! The first issue I ran into was the clearance from the launch rod to the rocket is minimal and such that the wooden portion with the rivet bands were too high. So I carefully removed one rivet from each side and using the aluminum rod and a piece of sandpaper I cleared a small area along the LL line to accommodate a smooth launch capability. Once everything is painted and stained it will be hardly noticeable. The launch lugs could have used an 1/8” standoff. Oh well such is life and building rockets. The 1/8” acrylic rods showed up yesterday so I first made a jig with 1/8” and 1/4” hardwood dowels placed in a heavy piece of particle board. I ended up using the smaller dowel for these rods. It was actually quite easy and forgiving to bend the longer blue and shorter red rods. The hardest part was trying to match the lengths. I just used my Monokote heat gun to soften and then quickly use the jig to make the bend. Adjustments were necessary so I simply re-heated and made the adjustment. I wanted these rods to be on the “bottom” of the rocket on both sides of the LL line so I marked out the line location for all the rods. I used some wood beads that I sanded a flat spot on (glue surface) and glued them down to the rocket using the rods to fine tune the spacing. All the bead bases were glued down with wood glue. The rods were then removed and the rocket set aside to dry. The rods won’t be permanently installed until the rocket has been fully painted and clear coated. 🥰🚀🚀🚀
 

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The Doc Brown’s FLYING TIME MACHINE model rocket build: today the wired transformers got glued on to the main rocket just ahead of where the Flux Capacitor will sit. These will feed to the Flux Capacitor once I’m ready to permanently mount it. All the mounts for the red and blue tubes were filleted with wood glue as were the transformer balls. The green flux capacitor rods were the cut to length and cut on one end to accept the metal transducers which were then glued in. The other end was step notched to fit over the base of the capacitor leads. The weather was ok today for a small paint project so I primered the flux capacitor housing and windowed lid. When that was dry they were wet sanded and then painted black. The lid will eventually be glued down and the unit will then receive touch up black paint. While that was drying I sanded down all the nose cones and went ahead and installed a 1/4” dowel noseweight anchor and sanded smooth. I also enlarged the hole at the end of the NC shoulder to make access to add noseweight if necessary. When the black paint had dried enough I attached the clear plastic window to the inside of the lid and set aside to dry. I also did a small fillet of canopy glue to this joint. Next I assembled all the parts to the Flux Capacitor permanently. I’ll need to go back tomorrow and using a toothpick add some glue fillets with the canopy glue to the green rods. The canopy glue dries clear by the way. Once that is dry I’ll do a final cleaning of the inside area and the underside of the window before permanently gluing the lid on. 🥰🚀🚀🚀
 

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The Doc Brown’s FLYING TIME MACHINE rocket build log: today I finished gluing the the green rods into the Flux Capacitor and permanently glued the lid down and set aside to dry. The spirals on the main rocket and both boosters were then filled with automotive glazing putty and set aside to dry. 🥰🚀🚀🚀
 

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The Doc Brown’s FLYING TIME MACHINE rocket build log: today I finished up the Flux Capacitor! It will be glued on after the rocket has been painted. I also sanded the entire rocket after filling all the spirals yesterday. It is ready for primer now! 🥰🚀🚀🚀
 

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The Doc Brown’s FLYING TIME MACHINE rocket build log: today the entire rocket was primered in grey. Now on to more sanding. Planning on getting the base black on this week! 😎🥰🚀🚀🚀
 

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The Doc Brown’s FLYING TIME MACHINE rocket build log: well I had only intended on getting the primer sanded down today because we were getting a high wind warning that wasn’t materializing. So it also got painted black today! 😎🚀🚀🚀
 

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Dry enough to put together on the launch pad! Lots more to do, but good to see it in black! I’m going to latte clear it so it won’t be shiny. 🥰🚀🚀🚀
 

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The Doc Brown’s FLYING TIME MACHINE rocket build log: today I accomplished a custom feature for the rocket which are these motor retainer cap sleeves to mimic those found on the movie train time machine. I’ve been racking my brain and shopping both locally and online for any tube I could possibly use to no avail. Everything I found was either too small or too big in diameter or too thick a material to work with. So I thought what the heck saturate a scrap piece of card stock and see how stiff it gets. It got stiffer, but not really enough. I made a prototype done that way and it was about the same. I went ahead and made an actual one for the main motor retention cap first. It then was sanded followed by the application of light fiberglass cloth with more thin CA glue to the outside and re-sanded. The fiberglass did the trick! The two smaller ones for the boosters were then made and sanded. All three were then painted with primer. Tomorrow I’ll paint them black. These are intended as a static display item only and are not for flight although they’d probably survive as they are pressure fit quite tight. 🥰🚀🚀🚀
 

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Great Scott! You're really driving this one off the rails with details. It's beautiful! Are you going to be able to launch it when done? I might be afraid to, it's too pretty!
Love reading all your updates, btw. Keep em up!
 
Great Scott! You're really driving this one off the rails with details. It's beautiful! Are you going to be able to launch it when done? I might be afraid to, it's too pretty!
Love reading all your updates, btw. Keep em up!
Thanks so much! I don’t know exactly when she’ll fly. The only site I have to launch at currently is surrounded by trees. I would like to fly it at some point though. 🥰🚀🚀🚀
 
Thanks so much! I don’t know exactly when she’ll fly. The only site I have to launch at currently is surrounded by trees. I would like to fly it at some point though. 🥰🚀🚀🚀
If you build it, it's a model. If you fly it, then it's a rocket!

I fly everything once. Some I don't fly very often afterwards. My Saturn 1B for example. It was lucky to survive landing with all those fins around the bottom intact. Might never fly again. 😂 Redstone has flown a few times, but I've repaired the tower a couple of times, so that doesn't fly too often.

So I encourage you to fly it at least once, when conditions are right. Then you can think about putting it on the shelf. Just make sure you get good video, and take pictures! 😁
 
The Doc Brown’s FLYING TIME MACHINE rocket build log: today I painted the rivet bands/gingerbread gold on the side boosters and nose cone. Touch up is required…this is a RAW shot. I knew the gold would make the rivets pop and boy does it! 😎🚀🚀🚀
 

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My Doc Brown’s FLYING TIME MACHINE rocket build log: today I masked off the upper section for the gold trim and shot the gold. I had forgotten about my four extra thruster units so I got those primered and just for fun I fitted the main/booster thrusters with their sleeves! I think it’s got a whole new look with these installed! 😎🚀🚀🚀
 

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My Doc Brown’s FLYING TIME MACHINE rocket build log part deux for the day. Yes those are at least a couple hundred (maybe three) separate pieces of various masking tapes and automotive vinyl tape I just very carefully removed from today’s big mask of the upper section. Masking this rocket is so intricate and time consuming that I made the decision to only tackle a single section per day. Yesterday was the the boosters and nose cone, today the upper section and tomorrow will be the lower section. Doing it this way has been great and I’m not overdoing it which makes it stress free…the object here after all. This all needs more touch-up/clean up work. 🥰🚀🚀🚀
 

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My Doc Brown’s FLYING TIME MACHINE rocket build log: well the weather was not good for painting the final section in gold trim today so I took the opportunity to do indoor touch up painting on all the parts I’ve done so far instead. I also decided the Flux Capacitor case needed a band of eventually gold rivets on top so those Bearly Glue drops got laid down. Not bad for free hand application! 😎🚀🚀🚀
 

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Well over the last few sessions I got the exposed wood stained and sealed. All the gold trimmed areas, thus far, have been touched up. I also got the gold trim painted on the Flux Capacitor housing. Next up, I will be getting the lower portion trimmed in gold and the 4 extra BTTF thrusters painted black followed by final assembly and vinyl decals. 🥰🚀🚀🥰
 

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Today my Bride, Lorrena, began making the vinyl decals for this project. Some of the smaller front fin red detail was added, but we’ll wait for the rocket’s completion for the complete reveal. I also did som FX painting to the canopy with some purple and blue Lexan paint misting which I think turned out amazing. A little more gold touch up was required on the boosters around the wood patches I stained and finished previously. A small amount of gold touch up was also required around the canopy. I also added some micro pinstriped on the nosecone. Finally, I painted the thrusters black. Oh and I got a couple pieces of bling glued to the Flux Capacitor housing. I have 4 more pieces to add to that over the next couple of days as well. I’m hoping the weather will be good enough tomorrow to get the gold trim on the bottom section. We shall see. 🥰🚀🚀🚀
 

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Today the weather cooperated! After a quick (LOL 🤪) masking session the lower section’s trim was painted gold. Quite a bit of touch up to do next. I installed some of the vinyl decals my Bride, Lorrena made for me, but the pics only show a hint. I’m saving all that really for the upcoming full reveal so stay tuned! The boosters also received their vinyl. Finally I added some gears to the sides of the Flux Capacitor housing. 😎🚀🚀🚀
 

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