- Joined
- Oct 22, 2011
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- 210
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Well it is high time to get going on my first fully fiberglass build. I've been trying to get an HPR rocket in every diameter built as well. So far I've done 29mm, 38mm, 54mm, and 7.5 inch. Last Black Friday the Composite Warehouse Pink Lady kits were going for like $99 and $20 of that went to the Susan G Komen breast cancer foundation. My mother was a breast cancer survivor and that coupled with the fact this was also a 4" kit, something missing from the arsenal, was enough to convince me to scoop this up. It actually arrived Christmas Eve but sat on the shelf and in the shadows of my L2 build.
Well enough background, on to the building! The kit is just exactly what you'd expect for such a great deal. Motor mount, centering rings, fins, airframe, an AV bay with bulkheads, switch band, and a nose cone with an aluminum tip. Everything else is up to you... perfect!
I set out getting the assistant washing parts on a nice sunny day not too long ago.
Then it sat around for a couple more weeks. Finally I decided to get the fins mounted up. I started by drilling holes in the centering rings for recovery harness points, and some tee nuts for motor retention. The u-bolts are actually from wire strand saddle clips since regular u-bolts would be way to big. Then I used 1/4" drill bits as spacers for the rear centering ring, and backwards fins to set the distance to the forward ring.
While the epoxy on those set I decided to modify the fins. I know it's blasphemy but I plan on flying this on some hard surfaces and rear swept wings just don't give me happy feelings. I decided to cut 2" off the fins and transform them into a clipped delta shape for durability.
Then over to the router table with a sweet new bit and a quick chamfer along exposed edges.
Then I slit the rear airframe with a hacksaw at each fin slot and started tacking the fins in using the same basic jig Tony demos on his YouTube channel. Note the tourniquet to suck the airframe around that aft centering ring.
That catches us up to current day and we have all three fins tacked to the motor tube awaiting internal fillets. Maybe that'll happen this week! Goal is have this flight ready by September 17th. Sticking a K695 Redline in there, which will be both my first 54mm and first Aerotech reload.
In case anyone else picks up one of these kits I'm attaching both the stock kit and my modified fin version OpenRocket files. I've made these from scratch with actual component masses in there. I'll eventually share one with updated mass and CG post epoxy and paint but this is good start.
Well enough background, on to the building! The kit is just exactly what you'd expect for such a great deal. Motor mount, centering rings, fins, airframe, an AV bay with bulkheads, switch band, and a nose cone with an aluminum tip. Everything else is up to you... perfect!
I set out getting the assistant washing parts on a nice sunny day not too long ago.
Then it sat around for a couple more weeks. Finally I decided to get the fins mounted up. I started by drilling holes in the centering rings for recovery harness points, and some tee nuts for motor retention. The u-bolts are actually from wire strand saddle clips since regular u-bolts would be way to big. Then I used 1/4" drill bits as spacers for the rear centering ring, and backwards fins to set the distance to the forward ring.
While the epoxy on those set I decided to modify the fins. I know it's blasphemy but I plan on flying this on some hard surfaces and rear swept wings just don't give me happy feelings. I decided to cut 2" off the fins and transform them into a clipped delta shape for durability.
Then over to the router table with a sweet new bit and a quick chamfer along exposed edges.
Then I slit the rear airframe with a hacksaw at each fin slot and started tacking the fins in using the same basic jig Tony demos on his YouTube channel. Note the tourniquet to suck the airframe around that aft centering ring.
That catches us up to current day and we have all three fins tacked to the motor tube awaiting internal fillets. Maybe that'll happen this week! Goal is have this flight ready by September 17th. Sticking a K695 Redline in there, which will be both my first 54mm and first Aerotech reload.
In case anyone else picks up one of these kits I'm attaching both the stock kit and my modified fin version OpenRocket files. I've made these from scratch with actual component masses in there. I'll eventually share one with updated mass and CG post epoxy and paint but this is good start.
