Apollo LES HPR

[g_boxwood]

The last dry fit before the epoxy mess...

Epoxying done:

Clearing-up the holes for the MMTs:

 

[g_boxwood]

MMTs in place...

... with generous fillets for better cloth transitions:

Reinforcing:

 

[g_boxwood]

Sanding...

Full booster view (skirt is missing):

 

[Pantherjon]

Coming out looking awesome!

 

[Drazic]

Christ thats some skills there dude, im very impressed

 

[g_boxwood]

Thank you both very much, glad you liked it!

 

[jj94]

Good job so far. Can't wait to see it finished.

 

[talkin Monkey]

...Wow!

 

[..Pat Butler]

Excellent workmanship. Are your parts laser cut or did you do them manually? There are some tiny tabs that look just perfect.

 

[g_boxwood]

Thank you again!

Pat, I do cut my own parts using a Dremel scrollsaw with very fine-teethed saw blades: parts are not as precise as they look in the pics.

 

[MaxQ]

Looking good.
Very good.

 

[wilsotr]

Wow. Hope you're keeping copies of your parts patterns.

 

[g_boxwood]

Ok, as I've already said I'm proceeding really slowly due to being very tired as I get back home from work...

I put the tower assembly aside for a moment and I started putting the capsule mold frame together.

The capsule mold consists of a number of 1/8" lite-ply rings glued to a 3.9" airframe tube (LOC) with 12 interlocking stringers that helps keeping everything were it belongs. The stringers are lite-ply as well.

The biggest ring (the base one) spans roughly 21" but it didn't cause me too much trouble. I brought my plans to the local printing shop and I got them on paper @ 1:1 scale:

Cutting the rings was then a matter of time and patience...

I was able to cut the internal 4" hole without any hassle with my trusty Dremel jig-saw: I was not sure I could do it!

Here are the stringers:

 

[g_boxwood]

On the other side I didn't realize how much trouble could it be to fit all the pieces together... Despite the many stringers and the inter-locking construction things can get quite annoying at the very first stages.

I was also unsure about the adhesive: I finally opted for the aliphatic resin as it is both practical (no mixing required, no working time) and economical.

I started by glueing all the rings to the bodytube with only 4 of the 12 stringers in place:

I let the glue dry overnight and I then flipped the frame upsidedown reinforcing the joints (the assembly was clamped while glueing so I only had access to the joints from above):

Next came all the other 8 stringers:

Once done with it I brought everything outdoor to take a few pics of what has been done so far:

 

[fyrwrxz]

Please tell me this excellent project was not abandoned!?

 

[BABAR]

Please tell me this excellent project was not abandoned!?

I think it’s in the que with the Rube Goldberg Lander.