luke strawwalker
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jan 18, 2009
- Messages
- 9,147
- Reaction score
- 40
the instructions advise you to cut the now rounded dowels into 3/4" lengths. These are then glued onto the inside of the LES fairing at right angles to one another
View attachment 116269
rather than attach the wires to the outside edges of these rounded dowels, I cut and trimmed small pieces of the .020 rod so that they fit on the inside edge of the dowels...I thought this would be a more realistic look...its not as hard as it looks because the dowels and white glue set up pretty quickly. The tower is not tall enough on this rocket to recreate the entire LES tower brace pattern, so I kinda winged it and used the top row of brackets and the bottom row of what would have been on the real tower. I start with that middle support bracket and place each into place around the LES tower legs.
View attachment 116273
from this set of brackets, pretty much everything is built up and down from that level. The top row of brackets is a large "X" shape...so I glued an trimmed piece of rod onto the inside edge of the LES legs. I then glued another cross bar to make the "X" shape by gluing over top of the other. This rod is so thin that it fits pretty good. The lower level consists of an inverted "V" bracket that runs from the base of the tower support to the middle of that lower bracket we set into place above...I went around each side of the LES tower doing one side of the inverted "V" bracket at a time. By the time I got all the way around, the first brackets had set up and it was simply a matter of putting each piece into its place. The completed tower, I think, looks a little more realistic. I used the wooden dowels or sticks provided in the kit because its my intention to fly this rocket...I guess we'll see how tough they are!
View attachment 116277
the tower is in the paint shop right now! let me know what you think? I am little nervous about the strength of this tower...I tried to use glue to reinforce each of the joints. I hope its enough
Go looking for answers in one thread and they're in the other one...
I'm learning a TON re-reading this thread... This will help A LOT!
I also see I've been doing a little "re-creating" of a technique Rick already used here... LOL Well, I'm putting a little twist on it, so we'll see how it turns out...
Later! OL JR