Plasma Dart II Build Thread

Nytrunner said:

*right-click, measure distance

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ooooh, nice, how did I not know about that??? My knuckle calibration was way off, more like ~1500 feet.

I'll be most people don't know about "Measure Distance". It is awesome.

Anyway, your mark is pretty close... parking and pads are just below Industrial Lane there, in that little block of sod that looks green on the picture. Problem is the area around that sod (all below Industrial Lane) can be challenging for recovery, in addition to all the irrigation ditches. I don't know if they planted corn there this year. Anyway, you hope for wind blowing towards the north if possible. Or better still, none at all. Still, it's all a bit unpredictable.

Applied a coat of Future to the warp core decal. Here it is, suspended as usual over my garbage can:

Usually I suspend the rocket vertically, but in this case I didn't want the Future to flow onto other parts of the rocket. I debated briefly whether I wanted or needed to coat that decal, which would be protected by the cage from any direct contact. Ultimately decided that there was no good reason *not* to clear coat it.

Now I am ready to install the warp cage.

What parts did you not want to coat with Future?

I didn't want anything on the warp cage mount points, and no stray drips everywhere else. I probably could have dealt with it by masking, but didn't want to worry about it.

After the warp cage is done I'll Future the rest of the model in two steps: everything in front of the warp cage, hanging nose down, and everything behind it, hanging tail down.

Installed 5 warp cage pieces:

The launch lug piece needed some additional finishing work so that’ll come later.

For these pieces, I sanded them until they fit tightly between the centering rings, then glued them in with TBII. I’m not confident about the strength, hopefully these pieces won’t be tested too much.

After installing the lug piece, I’ll need to do paint touch-ups around all the mount points (and maybe flow some CA in there for a bit of extra reinforcement).

neil_w said:

(and maybe glow some CA in there for a bit of extra reinforcement).

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Is this one of those adhesives that cures when exposed to UV light?

kuririn said:

Is this one of those adhesives that cures when exposed to UV light?

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That's what I get for posting from my phone...

I am indeed applying some CA to the two sides of each joint, hopefully it'll help a little.

Oooh, nice, that's really looking good. Do you do touch ups with a brush? I bet they cage will be plenty strong for what it will see, barring the unexpected, such as recovery by golden retriever. Nothing survives that....

mbeels said:

Oooh, nice, that's really looking good. Do you do touch ups with a brush? I bet they cage will be plenty strong for what it will see, barring the unexpected, such as recovery by golden retriever. Nothing survives that....

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Yup, touch-up with brush. Never looks perfect, but what can ya do...

Today I completed the warp cage, and with that, construction.

First I needed some Future on the lug piece. No good way to do that after installation without making a mess, so I painted the future on with a small brush, and then hung it on a string over my favorite garbage can.

While that dried, I did the paint touch-ups on the warp cage mount points. I wrapped a piece of paper around the warp core to protect the decal while doing touch-ups. Probably not needed, but I felt better having it there. Then I touched up around each of the cage mount points with a very fine brush and gloss black Vallejo paint:

Everything looks good after touch-ups.

I then glued in the lug piece. Feels pretty solid, won't know for sure until launch. It is definitely ugly, though. Touch-ups were applied, and here is the finished cage:

Here's one of the ends, showing the lack of unpainted areas:

Pretty good. The cage pieces are not, however, perfectly straight or perfectly evenly spaced. That is frustrating given how much time I spent trying to ensure that they were. Were I to build this again, I'd need to come up with a better system.

Oh hey, construction is finished! This could fly tomorrow. Just need a good coat of Future and it is completely finished. Beauty shots come after Future.

Outstanding!

I bet it would be very difficult to see the misalignment without specifically looking for it. Looking forward to the beauty shots.

It’s not that bad but it’s annoying because I feel it should have been avoidable.

I will forget about it once the rocket is finished, no worries.

After the preflight beauty shots, maybe you can drag out your fleet and get a pic of a bunch of them side by side?

I’ll try. Harder than it ought to be to pose a bunch at the same time...

neil_w said:

I painted the future on with a small brush, and then hung it on a string over my favorite garbage can.

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The fact that you have a favorite garbage can for the purpose shows the attention to detail that makes you such a good builder.

That garbage can has seen a lot of Future in the present and past...

Rocket is fully Futured and finished. Beauty shots to come next time I have an opportunity; may or may not happen this week, and then next week I'll be on vacation.

Looking at the finished rocket, one thing I notice is.... well, it basically looks just like the OR renders. Which is the point, but there's not a lot of delight and surprise to see the finished model, just relief and satisfaction that everything seems to have worked correctly.

Maybe one day I'll do a build thread where I don't reveal the design or finish of the rocket beforehand. That could be interesting...

Great design and build, Neil!
I enjoyed going back and reading all the build progress. Seems you learn
a lot when assembling a model this complicated.

hcmbanjo said:

Great design and build, Neil!
I enjoyed going back and reading all the build progress. Seems you learn
a lot when assembling a model this complicated.

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Thanks! I try to learn at least one new thing on every build... though invariably that means learning how I *should have* done some things after it's too late.

neil_w said:

Looking at the finished rocket, one thing I notice is.... well, it basically looks just like the OR renders. Which is the point, but there's not a lot of delight and surprise to see the finished model, just relief and satisfaction that everything seems to have worked correctly.

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You can't hold an OR rendering. It used to exist only in silico, and now it exists in cellulo. Be proud.

Beauty Shots

I had a lot of trouble photographing this one. Doesn't help that I have terrible lighting. Anyway, this is as good as it gets for now. Thanks everyone for following along!

One word--Wow!

-Bob

You said it before, but it really does look just like the Open Rocket renders, which is quite of amazing. What was once just an idea, is now a real thing.

it would look really cool instead of a black blanket for a background, if you had one decorated with stars and planets and galaxies, you know, like a SPACE blanket.

Nicely done. Hope it looks this good after it’s maiden flight!

GlenP said:

it would look really cool instead of a black blanket for a background, if you had one decorated with stars and planets and galaxies, you know, like a SPACE blanket.

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Or on a nice green lawn. With the amount of black in this one, the rich green would give better contrast to all of the colors of the rocket.

Here's a new thing, the last pic in the thread needs to be a reenactment of the first sim pic in the thread

Nytrunner said:

Here's a new thing, the last pic in the thread needs to be a reenactment of the first sim pic in the thread

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With the model rocket? Yeah, I think that should be a thing.