Fliskits Rose-a-Roc build thread

I am a copter recovery enthusiast and was very happy to see Jim release the Rose-a-Roc design as a kit. I have flown many Helicopter recovery rockets. I have QCR, Venus Rocketry, Apogee and many scratch build Rot-a-Rocs, Chicago Choppers and some of my own design.

In this build a I plan to break it down with pictures into 4 parts:
1. Rotor Blade Construction
2. Body and Rotor Shaft
3. Rotor Hub Construction
4. Nose Cone and Fins

The instructions are very well thought out and detailed. It is VERY IMPORTANT that you read the instructions thoroughly. Things like knowing the difference between what is the underside of the blade according to its orientation, grain direction, wire bend angles etc...
Read and read again. Match your building to the pictures. Doing these things will lead to a successful build.
Here are the kit parts:

Rotor Blade Construction
The first and probably one of the more difficult items is construction of the Rotor Blades. Constructing the rotor blades consist of these steps
Cutting out the blades
Applying the Monocote
Splitting the Blades
Applying the split hinges
Creating the wire hinges that attach to the hub.


Completing all these steps for the rotor blades took as long as I usually take building an entire rocket. I love building so I loved every moment.



A few tips:
The Monocote comes rolled in a tube. It is best to tape it down to a cutting mat prior to cutting. Use a sharp new blade to cut.
Not everyone has a Monocote iron to apply the Monocote. I used a normal household iron set to medium with a layer of wax paper on top of the Monocote. It worked beautifully.

Here are pictures of the blades in various stages of construction. In the last picture you can see the completed blades. The blade in the center is showing the top so you can see the split hinges.

more tomorrow...

I'm really looking forward to this thread. Do you airfoil the blades in this kit?

Sanding an airfoil is recommended (required if you really want to win ) but you can be as loose or detailed as you wish in that step. The better the airfoil the better the lift (the longer the hang time). But the RaR is also (for my money) a great sport model as well.

lessgravity, any chance of uploading slightly larger pictures? Hard to see the detail.

Also, I use a monokote iron and have received several requests for how to use a regular iron so thank you for posting that information. Question: What is the setting you use. I used to use a regular iron and seem to remember keeping it on the "cotton" setting...

Great point and thank you for emphasizing the need to READ the instructions and making your assembly actually LOOK like the figures while building. It is hard to fix mistakes on this kit and (frankly) sometimes harder to *notice* mistakes until after you fly... One of the proto's i built didn't have the incidence in the hinge so it floated back without spinning at all...

Can't wait to see more on this build as well as other build threads on this beast!

jim

Body and Rotor Shaft

This is probably these easiest part of this build. The instructions are pretty clear.
After putting the centering rings on the shaft rotate the shaft to make sure they are on straight and balanced. I'm using Titebond as my glue of choice on this build.

Rotor Hub Construction

This is another difficult section of the build. You will need a steady hand and a good pair of needle nose pliers.
After gluing the alignment disk with the hinge disk you will be attaching the rotor blade hinges by wiring them to the disk hub. This requires patience and quite a bit of dexterity. Pushing the iron wire through is much like threading a needle ...six times. This is where the wonderful illustrations in the instructions really pay off. The documentation does a great job of walking you through every part of the wiring. Afterwards your rotor blades will be attached to your hub and ready to to be put on the rotor shaft.

Dang! You did good!

Yeah, this is the tough assembly, but (personal experience here) far easier than the original scratch built Rose-A-Roc where you have to DRILL those darned holes yerself and THEN sew the blades on...

Love the pictures too. keep us posted!
jim

Excellent thread!

As Jim mentioned , would like to see larger detail pics, especially for those of us not familiar with this design/concept.

Keep the pics coming and ^5ss

Nose Cone and Fins

After Rotor hub construction the hub is attached to the rotor shaft and the Nose cone is glued onto the shaft. It is at this point that rotor blades are adjusted so that they have the proper dihedral. This is done by matching the end of the blade extended with the top of the nose cone and adjusting the bend in the hinge wire with your needle nose pliers.

You are given a choice of fins for the rocket. You can use the classic Rose-a rock pattern or a smaller fin pattern to be used with lighter motors. I picked the original classic fins for my build.

I received word from Art Rose that the primary consideration in the fin design that he chose was to provide a stable base so that the model could stand on its own. Just an FYI

Great build. You're nearly complete. Just gotta rig that puppy now

jim

Here is one last picture of the finished rocket. I wanted to show the rocket with the rotors tucked and folded into their launch positions. I do not have the Sig rubber actuators installed in this photo. I don't like to install them until the day before the launch. I'm hoping to fly this at our club launch on the 19th. If I get a chance to fly before then I will. I plan to document it's first flight.

Good Job Less:
Great looking rose-a-roc, Man I remember what a pain making those hinges were :lol: looks like another wonderful Kit production by Fliskits! I think I'll buy one just for the nostalgia of it.
Looks like a grand job on the insturctions sheet Jim! bet you spent a hour or two drafting them Up

Micromeister said:

Good Job Less:
Great looking rose-a-roc, Man I remember what a pain making those hinges were :lol: looks like another wonderful Kit production by Fliskits! I think I'll buy one just for the nostalgia of it.
Looks like a grand job on the insturctions sheet Jim! bet you spent a hour or two drafting them Up

Click to expand...

The frustration with the Rose-A-Roc instructions is that every stinkin' figure was different than anything I've ever done before... Most any/every kit I do some of the steps are duplicates (or near so) of the same assembly in another kit, so I begin the figures by bouncing around my database looking for existing figures that can be used as is or used with little modification (like, there are only so many ways I can show the installation of the engine block in a motor tube...)

On the RaR, not so... Heck, even the engine block is totally different LOL. Also, many times I did up the figures, incorporated them into the instructions only to realize that there wasn't something clear between steps X and Y, so I would do another figure to clear that up...

I am very proud of this kit though and Art Rose simply loves it. When I first approached him about it he was convinced that the RaR could not be kitted successfully. Now he knows

jim

Less:
Your building the standard fixed rotor version correct? Is there a free Spin hub option included with the flis kit Instructions?

Micromeister said:

Less:
Your building the standard fixed rotor version correct? Is there a free Spin hub option included with the flis kit Instructions?

Click to expand...

The option was not mentioned however I did contemplate it. I have several free spin rotor copters and it would not be difficult to adjust this kit to spin. I'm probably going to build another soon and will make the hub spin but for this one I pretty much stuck to build instructions so that I could best represent the kit as it was meant to be.

Micromeister said:

Less:
Your building the standard fixed rotor version correct? Is there a free Spin hub option included with the flis kit Instructions?

Click to expand...

I had kicked this around with Jim while building the beta, and he pointed out that there are instructions for the rotating hub modification on the semi-official Rose-A-Roc plans available on the NAR web site (under competition/plans). That's not too bad a modification.

The other mod I think is probably more critical is to avoid the permanently attached bands from the blades to the hub. That would force you to either store the thing under full tension/blades flat, or slight tension/blades extended. Both of those options [inhale through a straw]. I think Jim included in the final released version an option to attach temporarily via pins in the hub or something like that.

--Chan Stevens

chanstevens said:

The other mod I think is probably more critical is to avoid the permanently attached bands from the blades to the hub. That would force you to either store the thing under full tension/blades flat, or slight tension/blades extended. Both of those options [inhale through a straw]. I think Jim included in the final released version an option to attach temporarily via pins in the hub or something like that.

--Chan Stevens

Click to expand...

I totally agree that this mod is totally necessary and did make this change on mine. Instead gluing the bands i used the angled pins and also created pins on the blades for attachment. Jim does show the pin option on the nose cone in the instructions. I'll try to get a picture but my camera isn't good on closeups. I always change my copter bands after every few flights. A lesson I learned the hard way.

Yes Chan, I know the plans are available from the Nar and on-line for that matter, I was wondering if Jim had included the Option in his Kit.
The one's I built back in the day started with the free hub option.
I totally concur with removable rubber bands which was another modification that many of us tried back then.
Even later several were built without the complex hub in an attempt to streamline that end of the model... but that gets into a whole other design sort of.
A couple other odds and ends, were to replace the heavy sig rubber with lighter elastic. and smaller dia dental retainer bands for the actuators.

Regardless of all Modifications: The Rose-a-Roc is turely a Must have for anyone interested in the History of HD recovery competition models. I believe Art was the first to introduce the folding rotor.

Yes, Art was the first with the folding rotor. With few exceptions (the hints on using pins for the elastic) I kept to the original Rose-A-Roc design with the understanding that many builders have either made modifications to the original or have contemplated them

In the case of the free spinning hub, I left that off mainly because I have never built that modification so had no first hand knowledge of it.

Also, the RaR is not just suitable for its historic value. It is still a competitive design. I have been to many HD events where a well built RaR would have easily taken 1st place

In this kit form, it's also a great sport model!

jim

I finally figured out the macro settings on my camera and can now show you how I mod the band actuator attachments. So that I may regularly change my bands and so that I can release the tension after every flight I create pin connectors for the bands. I simply use standard sewing pins to create my connectors.
The first picture is of the "S" connectors that I attach to the rotor blade. The pin slides into the balsa and are strengthened with CA.
The second picture is of the band attached.

Launch Report

I finally got a chance to launch this on Saturday at the ROCC club launch.
I launched it on a B6-2 but now know it needs a B6-4. It was still going up when the blades deployed acting like an air brake. After the blades deployed it was a very slow descent. The thing just hung up in the sky spinning away. I heard a collective "WOW!" from the crowd. What a great copter! I didn't time it - wish I did, however a spectator said by his watch it was pretty close to 3 minutes.
Can't wait to launch again!

Very kewl! Glad you got a good return. With the blades deploying while still moving up at high speed could have resulted in a lawn dart! Whew!

Isn't it just AMAZING to watch a well built helicopter model fly and recover?

jim

A fellow club member caught this photo of it on the way down.

View attachment rose-a-roc-fl2.JPG

I love the Monokote on the final released version of this kit. Adds a little weight, sure, but excellent hinge material for the folding blade, and certainly can't beat that bright orange color in the sky.

My Rose-A-Roc kit ordered last week arrived today. Looking over it, I think
the build shouldn't be much of a problem, since I've built several of the
Gassaway design models (one 13 mm and one 18 mm) without any real
difficulty. The 13 mm model, built back in the late 1970's, has withstood
the test of time (and many, many flights) and is still "active" in my competition fleet today.

Looking forward to going a step up in the competition with the Rose-A-Roc.
Thanks to Jim Flis for bringing this kit on the market!

I saw the Rose-a-Roc's flight on Saturday and it was awesome. I was amazed how long it flew, it appeared to hover in the same spot forever. Like he said with a longer delay, the flight duration is going to be outstanding. Looks like a winner to me.

John

Wow, 3 minutes is a great flight--I've only been able to do about half that time on a B motor.

Zack Lau said:

Wow, 3 minutes is a great flight--I've only been able to do about half that time on a B motor.

Click to expand...

Heck, this thing set records in its day. And may, yet again

Started on my build this afternoon; got the monokote on ok (my first time
using the iron on), but my first attempt (using a standard iron) wrinkled a bit
on the middle of the first blade. After that, the rest of the monokote application went on ok.

Then realized I don't have the required grade sandpapers; will have to get those tomorrow at Hobby Lobby. Will continue the build tomorrow, then.

Other than that, looks like a very interesting build in the works! Thanks,
Art Rose and Jim Flis!!

Can't have too many RaR build threads It is a rather intricate model and the more build threads the more folks can learn about *it* as well as helicopter models in general.