Build thread: 5.3:1 sport scale Super Deluxe #2 Skywriter XL Premium Pro Max - Limited Edition

[neil_w]

Maybe you got a bad batch of lexan?

More like a bad batch of gray matter.

Actually it cannot in this case. I have to apologize if I sent you down this course. I now remember that I considered applying Future to the fins on my "Color the Sun" Crayon rocket, but I did not. This is because of the cleaning issue. You cannot apply ammonia (dissolving agent for Future) to Lexan as it, like Future, is an acrylic and it will be weakened. See: https://www.acplasticsinc.com/informationcenter/r/polycarbonate-sheets-cleaning-care. At this point, it may be better to start all over.

Not worried, so far I have found that a combination of very fine sandpaper and my assortment of plastic polishes can do what's needed to remove (or sufficiently thin down) the Future.

I just need to figure out a reliable process to get these fins looking the way I want. This is getting tiring.

 

[jqavins]

Another thought just hit me: perhaps after enough time with fine abrasive (1000 - 2000?) to remove the Future, and using a sequence of finer and finer ones for as long as you can stand it, a flame polish might finish the process off.

Or, how bad would it really be to get new ones? I don't remember what you had to do, how much time and money they cost you, etc. Sometimes, one eventually has to admit when one is throwing good grief after bad.

 

[neil_w]

Another thought just hit me: perhaps after enough time with fine abrasive (1000 - 2000?) to remove the Future, and using a sequence of finer and finer ones for as long as you can stand it, a flame polish might finish the process off.

Flame polishing turns out to be a fairly bad idea with polycarbonate, although I ended up with decent results. It melts and bubbles fairly readily. I wouldn't dare try it on the flat surfaces.

Or, how bad would it really be to get new ones? I don't remember what you had to do, how much time and money they cost you, etc. Sometimes, one eventually has to admit when one is throwing good grief after bad.

Fair question. A coworker cut them for me, I really hate to have to ask him for another set.

Plus it seems like there should be a way to deal with this. I'll keep futzing for a while longer before giving up.

 

[neil_w]

Not everything is a disaster.

 

[kuririn]

Nice! Laser printed?

 

[neil_w]

yeppers

 

[BABAR]

Not everything is a disaster.
View attachment 408981

Not that anybody is going to care in this case, but....

If you copy something that says “TM”

Aren’t you blatantly violating the trademark?

 

[neil_w]

Well, for what it's worth, the Estes SkyWriter has a registered trademark symbol (®), vs. my unregistered trademark symbol (™). That matters... not a lot.

But this is basically following upscaling rules, which typically involves direct copying of design and decalwork. No biggie for a one-off.

 

[neil_w]

THE LAST WORD ON THE FINS

So I decided that my absolute last attempt would be the Turtle Wax headlight restoration kit, which is the cheapest such kit that anyone offers as far as I can tell.

It includes:

• a bottle of Clarifying Compound: as far as I can tell this is not significantly different from the Novus polish that I've already been trying (probably closest to the Novus #2)
• a bottle of Spray Lubricant: used for wet-sanding. I might use this in the future for other wet-sanding chores.
• Sanding pads: two double-sided ultrafine sanding surfaces numbered 1-4. They don't say what grit. Probably in the 2000-5000 range or thereabouts (1 is coarsest, 4 is finest)
• Sealed packet with one Lens Base Coat Wipe
• Sealed packet with one Lens Sealing Wipe

Process is simple:

1. Sand with the pads and the lubricant, starting from 1 and moving up to 4. I started from 3, since my plastic had already been fine-sanded.
2. Apply the clarifying compound. Again, this was pretty similar to my Novus #2.
3. At this point the fins are still cloudy, and I haven't gotten anything from this kit that I didn't already have. It was the wipes that I was most interested in.
4. Open up the base coat wipe and apply to all the fins. Not obvious what this stuff is; it was clear and pretty thin.
5. Let dry (only took a few minutes). The fins now looks slightly less cloudy
6. Open up the sealing wipe and apply to all the fins. Now *this* stuff was interesting. It went on sticky and goopy, leaving a stripey appearance from the wipe. I tried to get it as smooth as possible, but crossed my fingers that it would level itself out as it cured.

A note about the wipes: a common complaint in reviews of this product is that you get two wipes, and once you open them... well you're probably not going to be able to use them again. I tried to buck this trend by re-sealing them as well as I could, in hopes that they won't dry out. But I approached this process as a "you only get one shot" sort of thing.

Well at this point I can say that whatever is on those wipes is the magic. I have four fins drying (three fully processed, and one I applied the wipes directly onto the scratched fin) and the stuff leveled out at least 90%, and the fins look at least 90% clear. And hopefully that sealer will give a bit of protection to the surfaces once it's all installed. It says 24 hours to cure so I'm not touching them yet.

Here's one of them, next to the old picture for reference:

Shining the light through it really is worst-case scenario; looking at it normally it looks great. You can see a bit of rippling; the sealer didn't level out completely but more than good enough.

So it looks like I am off the ledge. Let's finish this sucker.

 

[ebruce1361]

WOOO HOOOO!

You're off the ledge, and I'm off the edge of my seat! I was genuinely worried you weren't going to reach a resolution with those fins! And as such, I am simultaneously nervous to try anything with clear fins myself, but I also now have it in mind to go straight for the Turtlewax headlight kit if I do get so brave.

 

[neil_w]

You're off the ledge, and I'm off the edge of my seat! I was genuinely worried you weren't going to reach a resolution with those fins! And as such, I am simultaneously nervous to try anything with clear fins myself, but I also now have it in mind to go straight for the Turtlewax headlight kit if I do get so brave.

The key is: keep that plastic coating on as long as possible. Do not under ANY circumstance use paper towels to dry them (that was my downfall). One of the available headlight protectants should help give at least a bit of protection to them afterwards. You only need the full restoration kit if you let them get scratched up like I did.

 

[BABAR]

Not that I am likely to ever use clear plastic fins (my stuff is more engineering wackiness rather than aesthetic coolness), but anything that gets significantly degraded by rubbing it with a PAPER TOWEL is definitely something I am not gonna build with.

Do you have any plans for “covers” or “shields” for these fins during transport to and from the launch site? My usual “throw it in the trunk with the tool/motor box and jump starter battery for my Pratt GoBox” probably wouldn’t work for these gems.

 

[neil_w]

Not that I am likely to ever use clear plastic fins (my stuff is more engineering wackiness rather than aesthetic coolness), but anything that gets significantly degraded by rubbing it with a PAPER TOWEL is definitely something I am not gonna build with.

I admit I was surprised, but I don't think I would have chosen any other clear fin material instead. It's soooooo strong. I *do* wish I had gotten 1/16" thick vs. the 3/32" that Home Depot had. The 3/32 is definitely overkill for this rocket.

Polycarbonate with scratch-resistant coatings is available, although it wasn't clear (sorry) if I could purchase it for reasonable price in small quantities.

Simply keeping the protective plastic on as long as possible would seem to be the best protection, and once they got scratched the Turtle Wax kit turned out to be a pretty good remedy.

Finally, they're just not going to stay pristine, gotta live with it.

Do you have any plans for “covers” or “shields” for these fins during transport to and from the launch site? My usual “throw it in the trunk with the tool/motor box and jump starter battery for my Pratt GoBox” probably wouldn’t work for these gems.

I'll probably wrap the fin can in a towel, not much more than that. I usually load my car very carefully anyway, in an ongoing effort to keep *all* my rockets as close to mint condition as possible.

 

[neil_w]

Brought the rocket in from the shed today, gave a quick inspection. Good news: in areas that were prepped properly, the looks like one of my better paint jobs. Very smooth. Also, the fin can seems like it's OK. Bad news: not all areas were prepped properly.

It will be fine.

 

[Greg Furtman]

You are an amazingly patient person. Persistant too! If you were a Finn I'd say you have Sisu. (Look up the WikiPedia explanation. I'm half Finn. )

 

[neil_w]

You are an amazingly patient person. Persistant too! If you were a Finn I'd say you have Sisu. (Look up the WikiPedia explanation. I'm half Finn. )

Kiitos paljon!

 

[Nytrunner]

Erase this from your memory

 

[neil_w]

PAINT REVEAL, PART 1: AIRFRAME

Here's a shot that shows the "bad" aspects of the paint job:

Several defects here (click to enlarge for better view):

1. You can see what looks like speckling on the paint surface. That is where the label paper got roughed up when I sanded through filler/primer by accident. This is a primary downside of label paper: It does not like to be sanded, at least not by 220 grit paper. Although I tried to smooth it over with 400 and 800 grit, it was only partially effective. The real solution would have been to hit it with another coat of filler/primer, but that is Not For Me.
2. The striations that appear running horizontally are from sanding the filler/primer. I should have done more circular motions to avoid this, although it is not bothersome on this particular rocket.
3. As you can see from the light reflection, the surface of the skin is not nearly perfectly flat. That's fine, but it means that sanding it evenly was next to impossible, and that's why the middle (which stuck up a bit) sanded through first.

Still, it's a more-than-good-enough paint job for this rocket; in some areas it looks downright excellent. I'll choose to focus on those.

The fin can had spread a little but not overly much; just enough so that the fit on the couplers from the ferrule assembly was a bit loose. I left it wrapped in some velcro to (hopefully?) tighten it up a bit; I'd rather not have to rely on a clamp when gluing everything together (I'll use one either way, but I don't want to be dependent on it).

Here's a dry fit of the ferrule assembly:

I think we can agree that looks pretty good.

Next up: the nose cone.

 

[mbeels]

That's awesome. And every time I see that ferrule, I think how many more rocket designs would benefit from a part like that.

 

[5x7]

Stunning

 

[Nytrunner]

Its a good thing. The dings and mylar tape rumples make it look like every other crimped pencil ferrule thats lived life

 

[neil_w]

Its a good thing. The dings and mylar tape rumples make it look like every other crimped pencil ferrule thats lived life

I wimped out regarding the ferrule crimps. Didn't think I could pull it off without making an irreversible mess.

 

[neil_w]

PAINT REVEAL, PART 2: THE NOSE

Unmasking the nose was nerve wracking and exciting. Happily, it all came of cleanly. The clear coat "sealer" over the tape seemed to work well.

That's about as good as I could have hoped for.

When I inserted it onto the body, I noticed that my alignment marks were painted over, so I just rotated it until it matched up. Took me five tries.

And here it is on the body:

The seam is predictably ugly, but it's not bad when not zoomed in close-up like this.

OK, so the nose and the tail look good on their own. What's the whole rocket look like? That'll have to wait until after the decals are on. Soon I hope.

 

[ebruce1361]

Were it not for the separation between the body and the nose, I'd say you cheated and photographed the end of an ACTUAL PENCIL! That looks fantastic!

 

[neil_w]

A bit of bad news: after a weekend of curing, my Lexan fins look fantastic. But the sealant is still not fully cured, as I learned when I touched one of them and left a nice smear (which then self-leveled pretty quickly). Not sure what to do about this, will probably consult Turtle Wax tech support.

 

[mbeels]

Were it not for the separation between the body and the nose, I'd say you cheated and photographed the end of an ACTUAL PENCIL! That looks fantastic!

Agreed, that looks like a real bona-fide pencil.

 

[SeanW78]

PAINT REVEAL, PART 2: THE NOSE

Unmasking the nose was nerve wracking and exciting. Happily, it all came of cleanly. The clear coat "sealer" over the tape seemed to work well.
View attachment 409307
That's about as good as I could have hoped for.

When I inserted it onto the body, I noticed that my alignment marks were painted over, so I just rotated it until it matched up. Took me five tries.

And here it is on the body:
View attachment 409308
The seam is predictably ugly, but it's not bad when not zoomed in close-up like this.

OK, so the nose and the tail look good on their own. What's the whole rocket look like? That'll have to wait until after the decals are on. Soon I hope.

That looks great!!!!

 

[jqavins]

PAINT REVEAL, PART 1: AIRFRAME...

1. The striations that appear running horizontally are from sanding the filler/primer. I should have done more circular motions to avoid this, although it is not bothersome on this particular rocket.
2. As you can see from the light reflection, the surface of the skin is not nearly perfectly flat...

These are accurate upscales of the imperfections found in real pencils.

The fin can had spread a little but not overly much; just enough so that the fit on the couplers from the ferrule assembly was a bit loose. I left it wrapped in some velcro to (hopefully?) tighten it up a bit...

A thing happened to me over the weekend that might have relevence here. I assembling a Frick 'n' Frack, and of course the outer trapazoid panels didn't line perfectly. What I've done is to force them into alignment and tape the corners, lightly bending and twisting the fin/pylons until the panels line up. The stresses on them should naturally equalize to minimize the overall stress strain product. My plan (this is the relevant part) is to give the fins a light Windex spray with everything taped in position as it is. The balsa should relax in its current position that hold that shape when it dries. So, having thought this up for my own project, I am in a position to suggest that you consider it for your fins can, with that velcro strap holding the tabs where you want them. Just be aware that I've only thought it up; I haven't tried it yet because I found to my chagrin that I haven't actually got any Windex. (D'oh!]

Agreed, that looks like a real bona-fide pencil.

I'll third that.

 

[neil_w]

These are accurate upscales of the imperfections found in real pencils.

Agreed, if there's any rocket for which this stuff doesn't bother me, it's this one.

I do find it instructive to analyze this stuff though, so I can improve my technique in the future. I will say I'm *very* happy with how good the paint is in the properly prepped areas. I will also say that I have no idea what I did better this time. So much for learning. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Just be aware that I've only thought it up; I haven't tried it yet because I found to my chagrin that I haven't actually got any Windex. (D'oh!)

I think it's a promising idea for your Frik 'n' Frak, although there are inherent dangers that when everything is soft it'll settle into an undesirable shape unless you have a lot of splints and clamps on it. I hope you'll document how you do it and how it works out for you.

For this rocket it'd be impossible because there's no exposed balsa to apply it to. Outside is painted and inside is body tube.

To all those saying it looks like a real pencil: wait until you see the whole thing.

 

[boatgeek]

I agree this looks fantastic!