Project Deep Space...working title

I will come up with a better name later. I was killing some time with OR recently and just came up with this. So I decided to start building it. I still can't decide the best way to do the nose cone yet. Got a few ideas I am working on. Think I will have it separate where the small tube meets the big tube, right behind the ping pong balls. Still mulling that over as well. Its (hopefully) gonna fly on 24's. Of course, due to the nature of reality some changes will have to be made. There is little holding the fins on. I will be extending them and making longer tabs to get more surface to bite.

View attachment 271131


First is a few parts. Some time ago I purchased an Estes Super Alpha and the nose cone had a hole in the end. I made a sorry attempt to fill the hole. An email to Estes and I had a whole new kit on the way, free of charge. I will be using some of the parts on this. The damaged nose cone will become a boat tail. Will use the body tube and probably some centering rings. And some ping pong balls.

View attachment 271128 View attachment 271120

Figured I would start at the boat tail. First up would be to mark each end. Best way is to slide the motor mount down over the tip as far as possible and mark it. Slide the body tube down from the tip as well. If I was making a normal boat tail, I wouldn't need to mark for the body tube. But this one isn't going into a body tube, it will be just sitting there with a transition on it.

View attachment 271127

Then out to the sander to get it to fit just right.

View attachment 271126

The finished boat tail with the motor mount. I have it set up to use E engines as well. Why not. The motor mount uses a thrust ring? or 24mm to 29mm centering ring. I honestly don't know what part that green thing is. It was in my box o' parts. The other is just one of those pieces that holds the motor clip in place. It acts as the, now aft, centering ring.

View attachment 271125 View attachment 271124

More to come...
Mike

Now to start the transitions. I thought it would be harder than it was. Thankfully OR gives you nice templates to print out that makes this a breeze. I cut them out and scratched my head because that simply didn't work. Thought about hardening them with CA but even then they would warp and what not. So my solution:

I wrapped some wax paper around a BT-20 tube aka know as 18mm Motor Mount for A,B,C engines. Then ran the paper transition down and set the whole thing in a scrap body tube to hold it. I used two part foam and poured it into the transition. This was only a test to see if it would actually work. Yes the small tube is not straight. But it worked.

View attachment 271132

I smeared epoxy over both centering rings, filled the transition with foam and placed them together then set them in the scrap. No picture of that. Using five minute epoxy and the foam is really quick so I had to hurry. I poured enough so that it would expand into the boat tail to help hold. I was hoping to have my fins in before this step, but I can get them in afterwards. I used centering rings and a spacer just to hold everything nice and straight while it cured. I removed them afterwards. The two part foam penetrates through the paper transitions giving them a nice slick finish.

View attachment 271133 View attachment 271135

These are donkeys
View attachment 271136

Here is the final rear assembly. Ready for fins and such.

View attachment 271134

The Super Alpha is a BT-60 rocket so I was curious how the boat tail would fit to a BT-60 tube after I did all the cutting. Fits pretty good.

View attachment 271137

Hope to get a chance to work on it tomorrow.

Mike

COOL BEANS DUDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I love bashing PNCs. So much you can do with them.
Ill be real interested in how you make the NC of this bird.

Thanks man.

Haven't been able to get much done lately. I had been getting birds ready to launch today. While I was getting stuff gathered and loaded it started raining. And rained for a few hours. So no launch for me...again. Anyway, I did manage to get some done.

This was a bit of a PITA-making the forward transition. Again I am using a template from OR. I CA'd a rough cut centering ring to a scrap piece of body tube and wedged the transition into it to hold it circular. This piece had to be cut out after the foam set, but I planned it that way. Two more centering rings on top of that. I smeared the inside of the body tube (the one standing up) with glue, poured foam into the transition and slid the body tube down. I set the whole thing aside so it could set up. I had the centering ring notched for shock cord as you can see in the picture, but I completely forgot about the shock cord. It'll just have to go in later, looks like I will be using the "fold, fold, fold, cuss and wipe all the glue off your hands" method of anchoring my shock cord. Ah well.

View attachment 271435

Here is where I am so far. Got the fins cut out, glued together and notched to fit. Was gonna go with fin tabs but now I am doubting that. They are sanded and ready to be papered but "not me" has taken my glue stick and I keep forgetting to grab one in town. I am not using wood glue or white glue, they are messy and warp the fins too much. The red coupler will be my separation point. Ping pong balls cut and ready to go.

View attachment 271431

A better view of the mid section, fo'c'sle even - well maybe not quite. A small ring of body tube and some small fins. That oughta be fun to sand.

View attachment 271430

For the NC. I thought maybe fill a body tube with foam, then cut it down to an octagonal shape. But scratched that. So here is what I am thinking on the NC. 1/16" balsa cut into 3/4" slats, eight of em. I got em pressed down onto some tape to hold them 1/16" apart. This is easier than gluing them to a body tube, for me anyway.

View attachment 271432

So to do a trial run. I cut a piece of scrap paper and used it as a sleeve inside. More wax paper on the bottom of an upside down cup and poured in some 2 part foam. The cup keeps the assembly rigid and circular. The foam actually forms a hemisphere if poured just right, that would make the aft end of my NC hemispherical, but it has got to be poured just right.

View attachment 271429

Once the cup was removed there was some slop between the slats and the paper/foam cylinder. No pics on that. This probably would have worked great but the foam could only expand out a little before it had to go up. Had I used a bulkhead with a few small holes to slow the upward expansion, it would have expanded out as well and possibly eliminated the slop. But it served it's purpose and gave me a cylinder to get an OD. 1.80". Now I can cut some centering rings to hold the slat assembly rigid and foam it to the body tube that will connect to the lower section.

Mike

I like what I'm seeing so far. It has a sort of future/retro look about it ! I like it.

Well.. finally got a bit of time to get to work on this thing. Not much progress. The NC is giving me fits. My test run worked great. In reality... not so much. Trying to cut centering rings out of cardboard or balsa is just a PITA. Balsa is horrible for that. Managed to get some cut finally and poured in my foam. Somehow, somewhere something got cockeyed and the tube was running off center quite a bit. No fixing that so it went in the trash. Got another idea to try, just have to find the time now.

I did get my fins papered but that is the only success so far. Just haven't had time and "Not Me" is now in cahoots with "I Don't Know" and "Wonder How". One of which knocked over my epoxy and, with the cap on, half of my resin leaked out onto my work area and two of my fins. Not too mention a pink rocking horse ended up falling onto the table where some of my rockets are stored.

I have quickly run out of room in my work/storage area. It is now a storage area only. I am too cramped to do much at all. Looks like my rocket building may be put on hold for a bit. And I may possibly be thinning the herd soon enough, both built rockets and unbuilt kits. Just so hard to get time to fly (no local clubs) and just no room for anything.

Wow... my build thread turned into a vent thread. My apologies.

So if anyone is following this build, it may be a while before you see any progress. Crazy work schedule and a 9 month old, most of my down time goes to her these days.

Mike

I'm thinking this is begging to be upscaled. The small tube would be 54mm mmt and the bigger tube 98mm mmt. EGAD this would be awesome on a long burn I or J

I don't know anything about having a 9 month around but I get the Idea of no time and room. I just had the weekend off and spent the entire time moving stuff and cleaning up my clutter to get my build table back ( it had become a gathering place for crap) I went through every drawer and tossed all that stuff I didn't need and cleared and organized my out door closet on the deck(cleaned it up too) . Found some stuff to give away to other TRF'rs and found a better place to put Carl the turtle. I'm in an apartment with the wife and 2- 90 lb. dogs, so it can be done , but what a P.I.A. Even managed to get the fall decorations out !

apburner said:

I'm thinking this is begging to be upscaled. The small tube would be 54mm mmt and the bigger tube 98mm mmt. EGAD this would be awesome on a long burn I or J

Click to expand...

Yes... but I was considering F or Gs.

hornet driver said:

I don't know anything about having a 9 month around but I get the Idea of no time and room. I just had the weekend off and spent the entire time moving stuff and cleaning up my clutter to get my build table back ( it had become a gathering place for crap) I went through every drawer and tossed all that stuff I didn't need and cleared and organized my out door closet on the deck(cleaned it up too) . Found some stuff to give away to other TRF'rs and found a better place to put Carl the turtle. I'm in an apartment with the wife and 2- 90 lb. dogs, so it can be done , but what a P.I.A. Even managed to get the fall decorations out !

Click to expand...

I really need to do some cleaning up around here again. That would help alot.
I did manage to get a few things done and took the family to RenFest for the weekend. But before rocket stuff, I have to pull the heads off my truck, and possibly the dash-depends on if I can make it another winter without heat in the thing. Adult stuff sucks. Lol

Mike