Apogee Flying Machine, who's got one?

[novahobbies]

I came across this on Amazon of all places, and when I saw it I went over to the Apogee website to check out some of the videos on it. WOW, it's quite a rocket! I'd been tempted to get the Zephyr Jr recently, but I decided to put that off another couple months and pick this one up instead. I've got this one coming, should be here in a few days but it's going to be a stash queen until I have a little time this winter. In the meantime I'm thinking of alternate ways of doing the details. Might transfer the patterns to my cricut and cut those out of vinyl, and then use 2 or 3mm gems for the rivets. I also noticed one of the models on the Apogee website had the fins stained and glossed instead of sealed and painted. That is a MUCH cooler look IMO and I think I'll copy that versus the aluminum-look for the fins.
So......who here has this built? Any good launch vids?

 

[kuririn]

https://www.rocketryforum.com/threads/build-thread-apogee-flying-machine.147034/

 

[novahobbies]

https://www.rocketryforum.com/threads/build-thread-apogee-flying-machine.147034/

huh, thanks! I wonder why this didn't pop up when I searched.

 

[kuririn]

Check out the Gallery subforum, nice pics of different interpretations of this kit.

 

[novahobbies]

Let's turn this into a build thread! I pulled out the Flying Machine last night and set to work. Fun model so far! I skipped around in the destructions a little so I could just focus on getting the motor mounts set up since I need to get some ingredients to make those rivets.
First up: fin construction!


I made all three motor mounts and set them to drying, and I installed the coupler for the payload bay. That's a big bay.....wondering what I should do with it! Hmm!


One thing that I don't like.......boy oh boy. This is a recipe for a zipper if I've ever seen one. There's enough space here, I might just lay up a small strip of fiberglass on the outside right here. One of the decorative rivet strips goes here as well, so it will look like it belongs. I hope!


Anyway, that's about it. Nothing fancy last night, just the basics. I cut out the vacuform details this morning, still need to sand them smooth. But I think the next part of the project is to cwf the fins and cut out all the rivet patterns for those bad boys. That will keep me busy all day for sure.

 

[novahobbies]

I spent yesterday cutting out most of the rivet straps and applying puffy fabric paint to replicate the rivets. I did all 18 patterns for the fins and canards, and then the extra "patches." When I picked up the page with the decorative parts though, my aching and said "OH HELL NO." So that's a project for another day.


In the meantime, I applied cwf to the fins, sanded them back, and applied the rivet patterns to the first two fins tonight. They look pretty good. There are a couple paint flubs that will be much less obvious under a coat of paint. This may be a sin but I'm not shooting for 100% perfection here. I'm just enjoying the build, making sure it looks good overall, and making sure the basics for flyability are covered.



Now for the bad news.
I flubbed BIG TIME on the coupler glue-down. And it was something I knew about going INTO the build. You know how fast Titebond bites down on cardboard. *I* know how fast titebond bites on cardboard. Anyone who's ever read these forums knows it.
I grabbed titebond for the coupler.
It bit too fast. I used a little too much torque forcing it down.
I creased the upper tube. ARGHHHH.
Not by much, but I sat there thinking about how much work was going into this, and how hard it would be to fix the tube. Not worth it. I've got a new BT70 and coupler on order. It will be an easy repair to remove the plywood bulkhead from the coupler and then sand the remainder of tthe glue away. Way easier than trying to fill and re-wrap the creased cardboard tube. And this way everything will stay pretty. I can keep working on the bottom half where all the business is while the new tube for the upper half comes in the mail.

 

[sriegel]

 

[novahobbies]

That's a beautiful model, thanks for sharing! Looks like you had a similar thought to mine for the fins -- I'm going to finish my fins and canards in hammered bronze, and then paint the rivet/reinforcement bandings the same steel color as the body. Hopefully I should be able to get the rest of those banding strips on the fins tonight and maybe even get a few fins glued to the BT. LOVING the details of this model so far.

 

[sriegel]

That's a beautiful model, thanks for sharing! Looks like you had a similar thought to mine for the fins -- I'm going to finish my fins and canards in hammered bronze, and then paint the rivet/reinforcement bandings the same steel color as the body. Hopefully I should be able to get the rest of those banding strips on the fins tonight and maybe even get a few fins glued to the BT. LOVING the details of this model so far.

It's a really fun kit. And you can lard it up with all sorts of extra doodads and greeblies in the name of steampunk.

BTW, I used small dots of Gorilla wood glue for the rivet heads. It dries pretty consistently smooth unlike Tightbond or Elmers.

 

[novahobbies]

I thought about using gorilla glue, but in the end decided to go with what I knew (and had in the shop already). I almost got little stick on gems from Michaels but decided I'd be better off just using what was already here. In the end I'm happy with the dots from the fabric paint. They're a little lower profile than the gem dots would have been, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Apogee update: the parts for the replacement upper tube will be here by Friday. More than enough time to finish off the fins for the lower half, and have the canards and the extra detail parts ready to go when the upper tube shows up. With just a little luck I should have this ready for its first coat of paint before the end of the weekend.

 

[novahobbies]

Got some more work done tonight.
Fins:


Boosters:


And a test fit with the busted upper half. God I like this size.


Yeah. This is a nice rocket. I'm enjoying this build.

 

[novahobbies]

Got some more done here. The new body tube and coupler came in yesterday, so I cut out the bulkhead from the old coupler, sanded the old glue off, re-glued it and attached the coupler to the new tube (with ELMER'S WHITE GLUE THIS TIME!) and then left it alone for the night. Tonight I pulled it out and added the vaccuform parts and the front "hatch," and the 4 front canard fins. Progress is slow but steady.

 

[novahobbies]

Well that was fun. Can't wait to not do THAT again.

 

[novahobbies]

I thought I'd get to paint this weekend, but thats looking less and less likely. It's pouring rain out, and I'm still not done with the rivet strips anyway, so maybe during the week. Still tho. I did get SOME work done this morning.

"What is it, Sebastian? I'm arranging matches..."


Got the planks on, and the 2 rivet strips that go over them. Really starting to look like a flying machine now!


I should be done with all the rivet decoration tonight at the very least. But I don't want to rush this and flub it up on the 11th hour.

 

[novahobbies]

As of last night, she's done with assembly and ready for paint and parachutes!
I had a few choices for the "next model" to build (don't we all?) but I can definitely say that I'm glad I chose this over the Perigrine Jr or the X15. I was looking for a little more challenge than the Peregrine would have provided, but I wasn't in the mood to tackle the X15 yet, so this was the perfect balance. Nothing about this was remotely hard, really - just tedious with all those rivets. Very much looking forward to seeing this model under some paint soon.


What's next? Not sure! I have a few items to pick from. Might do a quick 3FNC with the Peregrine, or else grab the Antar or Estes Shuttle out of the stash....or maybe finish one of those three half-done 90's era clones that are staring forlornly at me from the back of the closet. We'll see.

 

[Back_at_it]

That is a nice looking rocket but I'm not going to lie. That looks like a huge pain in the butt. Why would they not supply those sheets pre-cut. I honestly thing I'd scan them and let the Cricut cut them out.

Nice job on the build. You have way more patients than I do.

 

[novahobbies]

That is a nice looking rocket but I'm not going to lie. That looks like a huge pain in the butt. Why would they not supply those sheets pre-cut. I honestly thing I'd scan them and let the Cricut cut them out.

Nice job on the build. You have way more patients than I do.

The only ones I REALLY might have wished were pre-cut were the designs that go up near the top of the BT and the nose. Those were a pain to cut out. All the others were pretty straightforward; simple curves and straight lines. I was VERY tempted to scan and do them in the cricut but in the end I decided to just go with the provided heavy paper templates. Happy I did it, but also happy that it's DONE, lol.
It's dry out today, so I'm going to mask off the stained wood section and lay down some steel tonight.

 

[novahobbies]

Welp, that's the base coat sorted! More to come.

 

[novahobbies]

Gonna stop here until the weekend, but this is a good stopping point. I'm digging these colors.

 

[novahobbies]

Tested the canards by hand-painting the bands:


And realized I'd rather mask and spray paint. So....grab the tape!



Not bad! Until


ARGHGGGGG. And of course it had to be on the TOP side of the model. Typical.
I'll wait for all this to dry 100% and then touch it up.

 

[novahobbies]

I'm calling her done! I painted in the cockpit, repaired the paint pull on the fin, applied the decals (stickers....meh) and I still felt like it was missing some "pop" so I grabbed mybtamiya weathering pastels and accented the rivet bands, the nose cones, and added some general weathering streaking to imply this thing has flown through a few alien world atmospheres. It's subtle, but thats the idea. Just enough to break up all that monolithic steel color.






It has a couple minor warts if you look closely, but that just builds character.

My models have a LOT of character.

Not sure when I'll be able to fly this, but I'm hoping some time in February. The model comes with a 1/4" launch lug, but there are so many plant-on parts on the body tube, a quarter inch rod would probably bind. I'd say just fly it off a 3/16th. I'm going to start with a D12 in the core and a couple of B6's in the SRBs.

 

[Back_at_it]

WOW!!! Apogee should have paid you for building this kit. I've looked at that kit a dozen or more times and didn't pull the trigger on it as I didn't care for the strap on booster / cluster idea. Thanks to you, I just put one in my cart at Apogee. Not sure I'll build it with removable boosters but I'm certainly looking forward to the build.

Really excellent job !!!

 

[Back_at_it]

Gonna stop here until the weekend, but this is a good stopping point. I'm digging these colors.
View attachment 624832

What paints and colors did you choose for this?

 

[novahobbies]

What paints and colors did you choose for this?

These!

 

[novahobbies]

WOW!!! Apogee should have paid you for building this kit. I've looked at that kit a dozen or more times and didn't pull the trigger on it as I didn't care for the strap on booster / cluster idea. Thanks to you, I just put one in my cart at Apogee. Not sure I'll build it with removable boosters but I'm certainly looking forward to the build.

Really excellent job !!!

Thank you! The nice thing is, it's (apparently) totally flyable with or without the pods. So you may as well put them on there, because you never know when you're gonna decide to fly them! ;-)
Glad you like it though. Camera angle helps hide the unsightly bits. The only thing that really bothers me is a literal glue-wart that I didn't notice until after the copper color was applied, and by then I was too much into the finishing touches to do the work required to sand it out and re-mask and apply primer and copper. Such is life. As long as it flies well, I'll be happy.

 

[CoachSteve]

really terrific job, - one of my favorite kits - here are a few picts of mine

 

[Capt. Eric]

I came across this on Amazon of all places, and when I saw it I went over to the Apogee website to check out some of the videos on it. WOW, it's quite a rocket! I'd been tempted to get the Zephyr Jr recently, but I decided to put that off another couple months and pick this one up instead. I've got this one coming, should be here in a few days but it's going to be a stash queen until I have a little time this winter. In the meantime I'm thinking of alternate ways of doing the details. Might transfer the patterns to my cricut and cut those out of vinyl, and then use 2 or 3mm gems for the rivets. I also noticed one of the models on the Apogee website had the fins stained and glossed instead of sealed and painted. That is a MUCH cooler look IMO and I think I'll copy that versus the aluminum-look for the fins.
So......who here has this built? Any good launch vids?

I just saw this thread. I think the one on Apogee's web site is mine. I had sent them pics, which they have on their page, and they used in a POF newsletter (#570).

Yes, I stained and lacquered the fins and "tank". You have to be careful not to get glue on the wood before staining, or it won't take. For the rivets I used half pearls. A lot of folks ask me about them. Cheap from Amazon. Applied with a wax pencil onto drops of CA, which made it go relatively quick. There's over 1600 of them I think. I put a link to a video below. Also, the silver body paint is a Rustoleum "Hammered" finish paint. I also built a matching stand that's looks good too (more rivets!).

I loved the look of this and I get lots of compliments on it when I take it to a launch. It has flown locally here in NJ and at Red Glare in MD. Lots of fun.

Yours looks great. I love the launch lug! Unfortunately for me, I had to quickly add rail guides to mine so I could fly at Red Glare. But now I can use a 1/4" rod r rail.

Good luck with it and have fun. It is my favorite that I've built I think.

Here are a couple of pics and video links. Note - in the video showing me putting on rivets I am moving pretty slow. I got much much faster as I went along.
Flying at Red Glare:
Attaching rivets:

 

[Back_at_it]

I just saw this thread. I think the one on Apogee's web site is mine. I had sent them pics, which they have on their page, and they used in a POF newsletter (#570).

Yes, I stained and lacquered the fins and "tank". You have to be careful not to get glue on the wood before staining, or it won't take. For the rivets I used half pearls. A lot of folks ask me about them. Cheap from Amazon. Applied with a wax pencil onto drops of CA, which made it go relatively quick. There's over 1600 of them I think. I put a link to a video below. Also, the silver body paint is a Rustoleum "Hammered" finish paint. I also built a matching stand that's looks good too (more rivets!).

I loved the look of this and I get lots of compliments on it when I take it to a launch. It has flown locally here in NJ and at Red Glare in MD. Lots of fun.

Yours looks great. I love the launch lug! Unfortunately for me, I had to quickly add rail guides to mine so I could fly at Red Glare. But now I can use a 1/4" rod r rail.

Good luck with it and have fun. It is my favorite that I've built I think.

Here are a couple of pics and video links. Note - in the video showing me putting on rivets I am moving pretty slow. I got much much faster as I went along.
Flying at Red Glare:
Attaching rivets:

Excellent ideal. Which of the half pearls did you use. I don't see a link in your video descriptions.

 

[CoachSteve]

For the rivets on mine I used the wedding invitation "Pearls" as well - I found sheets of 2 sizes of the adhesive backed 1/2 spheres at a local craft store. (Michaels, here in Colorado). they only came in the 2 sizes i used.
for the staining on the fins, I stained the wood, then glued the template, placed the rivets, then taped off the wood and sprayed the rivet portions with Hammered as well

 

[Capt. Eric]

Excellent ideal. Which of the half pearls did you use. I don't see a link in your video descriptions.

It was something like this, but came with 24000 pearls. So I have a few extra but it was cheap at about 9 or 10 bucks. I only used 3 & 4mm ones.
Link:
https://www.amazon.com/TOAOB-19000pcs-Cabochons-Scrapbooking-Embellishments/dp/B07S349ZJX