Dr. Zooch - Vostok Build - FINISHED!

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Now Grasshopper, all you have to do is walk across the rice paper without leaving a trace and you will be ready to launch a Vostok!

To misquote Pulp Fiction - Well, let's not start breathing moisture into each other's paper tubes just yet, I still have a lot to do on this build before I can launch it.

I've held the rolls up to the rocket's spider beams to dry fit them and see how it would look, and I'm not pleased with what I see.

Can anyone tell me, are the witches hats supposed to be entirely flush with the adapter wrap on the main body? I looks like it from other pictures I can find online, but the spider beams seem to be keeping that from happening. I'm guessing mine will be close and require me to build up the adapter somehow.
 
Which Witch is correct?

Here are two pictures where I'm holding a strap on rocket tube, with a witches hat dry fitted, up against the rocket body and Spider Beams.

In the first picture the witches hat is parallel to the reduction shroud as described in the instructions. When I do this the Spider Beams keep the hat from touching the shroud at all.
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In this second picture, the witches hat is tilted over to touch the main rocket body, but it only touches at the tip.
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Which one of these is correct?
 
To misquote Pulp Fiction - Well, let's not start breathing moisture into each other's paper tubes just yet, I still have a lot to do on this build before I can launch it.

I've held the rolls up to the rocket's spider beams to dry fit them and see how it would look, and I'm not pleased with what I see.

Can anyone tell me, are the witches hats supposed to be entirely flush with the adapter wrap on the main body? I looks like it from other pictures I can find online, but the spider beams seem to be keeping that from happening. I'm guessing mine will be close and require me to build up the adapter somehow.

Just sand the inner edge of the spider beams until you get the best fit possible for each booster. If you still have a gap then use a little gap filler of some type - wood filler, squadron putty, bondo, tacky glue etc. Just stay cool like Fonzy!
 
Just sand the inner edge of the spider beams until you get the best fit possible for each booster. If you still have a gap then use a little gap filler of some type - wood filler, squadron putty, bondo, tacky glue etc. Just stay cool like Fonzy!

So the boosters are supposed to be up against the body tube, not held away by the Spider Beams?
 
So the boosters are supposed to be up against the body tube, not held away by the Spider Beams?

Yes, fit the best you can. Once they are all on you won't be able to see much anyway. This is the art of the Zooch. On my Luna all the boosters have a little gap and since they were all the same and I am really lazy for gap filling I just left them and it looks fine. On my Sputnik I had to do just a little filling to get it right. If rivet counting scale guy criticizes your Ant scale Zooch for having a little gap between the boosters and body, then I would think to use a Pulp Fiction quote that can’t be typed here on the Care Bear Forum.
 
So the boosters are supposed to be up against the body tube, not held away by the Spider Beams?

I agree with the earlier posts.
If I remember correctly, I had to sand down the tops of the spider beams a bit to get the tips of the witches hats to touch the reduction shroud.

From my build in 2009:
"I had to go back and glue down two of the Witches Hats to the inside shroud.
Again, I made a small puddle of CA on my work board. I pushed the tip of the "Hat" against the shroud and touched the joint with the CA on a toothpick tip. Note the gap at the underside of the Witches Hats - None of my four matched up with the inside shroud.

That Testor Master Modeler Spray Paint was a great surprise. Good coverage and blend with previous coats. The small 3 oz. can is more than enough for a model this size."

When all the boosters are glued on, you will see very little of the spider beams. I think the beams are there to help with the positioning of the strap ons. Imagine how hard they'd be to glue on steady if the spider beams weren't there!

My witches hats did touch the reduction shroud but the was a bit of fitting to get the tips to touch. The tops of the spider beams were sanded down a bit until the tips made contact.

You did a great job on the shrouds and witches hats!
Everything looks very smooth.
They are hard but worth it in the end. On the Apogee website, check out the picture of their Zooch Soyuz models. It's apparent that the builder had some problems with his model.

52_%20Soyuz%20Engine%20Tips%20Glued%20Down.jpg
 
That is a good picture of one with tiny little gaps - looks just like my Luna turned out. I guess it is a personal preference. With 20/20 hindsight I would go ahead and fill them in, not a whole lot of extra work or weight added, and besides, you are now a high end Zooch flier who will not settle for anything second rate. Welcome to scale world!
 
The second picture on that page shows a gap in between the booster and the main body, and the booster only touches at the nose cone. Hmm....

I guess it doesn't matter with this model, I'm going to try and sand down the Spider Beams and get my boosters closer so the nose cones look better.

On the REAL rocket, the boosters have sort of elongated "X" shaped or sorta "Y" shaped "shoes" that push against the the core vehicle to transfer the thrust into the core vehicle. So technically the tip of the cone is the only part that "touches" the core vehicle, since is the thrust transfer point. The boosters are attached and kept from rotating around the core vehicle by some struts located at the very back of the boosters, on either side, IIRC two coming straight out from the core stage to the boosters and two more describing an "X" shape... basically it looks like a sideways Roman Numeral "ten" (X with a bar above and below, flipped on it's side with the core stage on one side and the booster on the other).
R-7 rocket details.jpg
The R-7 is also unique in that it is supported from the middle while on the launch pad... there are four "petals" that fold in with pintles that hook into sockets in the rocket core's airframe to hold the vehicle up while on the pad... so in effect when the rocket is fueled and awaiting liftoff, the boosters and lower part of the core stage "hang" under these support points. As the R-7 lifts off, it lifts off these pins and once freed of the sockets, they swing back out of the way... They are a VERY clever design, using large counterweights located opposite the fulcrums which support the weight of the petal arms and rocket while on the pad, sufficiently heavy to swing the upper petal arm around about 90 degrees away from the rocket once it lifts free of the support pins. This way they're foolproof... no worries about hydraulics or other retract mechanisms failing to swing the petal arms out of the way of the ascending (and widening) base of the rocket as it lifts off, since gravity does the work automatically...

This topic of discussion came up with various ideas for building a vehicle using the Shuttle External Tank as the core tankage for a new vehicle using ONLY RS-68's or SSME's, with NO SRB's... BUT this creates a problem, because on the pad, the ET and shuttle stack are supported by the SRB's, which hold up the ET by the intertank thrust beam, which connects the ET to the SRB's via sockets in the ends of the thrust beam with large ball-type "pins" sticking out the side of the SRB casings which fit into the ET's sockets. Thus, the Hydrogen tank and orbiter "hung" below these ball sockets in the intertank of the ET. The ET was designed for this load path and it would take substantantial redesign to support the ET/Core from the bottom-- part of this would be done in the design of the new thrust structure to house the engines under the hydrogen tank, but it would also require some rework of the hydrogen tank walls to ensure they could handle the transfer of thrust and support of the weight above them while sitting on the pad. In the shuttle, like the R-7, the thrust of the boosters is transferred into the central vehicle at a point ABOVE the lower tanks...

I suggested that, for such a vehicle design retaining the "upper support" type arrangement like the shuttle ET, that the logical way to do it was to adapt the Soyuz pad "petal arms" to hold up the vehicle from the "waist", just as the Soyuz (R-7) does... it's simple, elegant, and it works...

Seemed over a lot of people's heads though... can't copy the Rooskies, can we??? :rolleyes:

Later! OL JR :)
 
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My witches hats did touch the reduction shroud but the was a bit of fitting to get the tips to touch. The tops of the spider beams were sanded down a bit until the tips made contact.

You did a great job on the shrouds and witches hats!
Everything looks very smooth.
Thanks!

Last night I spent some time working on the witches hats and sanding the spider beams. I've decided that I'm going to redo all the hats to make them a little shorter because my reduction shroud was shortened and that's what is throwing everything else off.

Because my paper skillz aren't quite up to par yet I wasn't able to get a good shroud (as pointed out in the earlier post) so I ended up sanding the best fitting one to make it fit perfect, and that ended up taking a lot of length away from that section. I really don't see how that pattern for the shroud could have possibly fit, but I'm smart enough to realize that I'm the new one here and just because I don't see how it should work doesn't mean it doesn't work. I just means I have more to learn. I never could get the bottom of the shroud to be a circle, it always ended up as an odd shape. Must practice more!!

Last night I tried to make a shorter witches hat (approx 3/16" shorter) and that seemed to work. I'd sanded on the spider beams to get the booster closer to the body, and the new witches hat makes the whole thing look a LOT better than my earlier dry fit. No pictures yet unfortunately, but I'll post some after I finish the other 3 witches hats.

I've also decided that I must label each booster and make sure when I sand the spider beams to make a booster fit right I put the same booster back later. These will not be precision made pieces that can be interchanged.

The amount of time I spent on this last night was considerably reduced because I bought a remote control helicopter from Amazon and it arrived yesterday. I posted a thread about it in The Watering Hole section so I don't hijack my own thread. But it was FUN!
 
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Wow, that's a lot of good information. Thanks for the research and update! It's always fun to read the reasons why some things are the way they are.

Yer Welcome... :) I went into paint and did a quicky drawing of what I was talking about... picture is worth a 1000 words ya know... LOL:)

When I get around to building this kit, I've been thinking pretty hard about making a "launch gantry" for it that will replicate the retractable arms to support it on the pad... They could be held in by bits of launch lug on the rocket with bits of small dowel on the ends of the arms, and counterweighted to "open up" at liftoff like the real thing... If they don't retract fast enough (due to the rocket taking off faster) it could be rather interesting... but I suppose if one made them with rubber bands they'd retract much faster than gravity powered with counterweights...

It'd make neat liftoff footage...

Later! OL JR :)
 
Here is the smaller witches hat that fits much better. This is actually the second one I made so now I have two, and as soon as I have all four finished I'll get them all fitted the best and glue the hats to the boosters. I want to sand the spider beams a little more so that the witches hats touch all the way down.

I probably need to go buy my paint today at lunch so I can paint the main body and boosters before I glue them in place.

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The night before last I painted the watered down CWF all over the balsa sheet and last night I sanded it smooth with 330 grit. Then I used the circle template to cut out 4 discs to be inserted into the bottoms of the booster tubes.

Before they get glued in I'll have some sanding to do around the edges to get them a little smaller to fit the best, but they came out a lot closer to round than I expected!

I put in a new blade into my Xacto knife and went very slow, scratching the wood on the first pass, then a little deeper each time I went around. After going around about 3 times I could set the template aside and just cut in the path that I'd made, and with a few more passes I was all the way through. It's like buttah.

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I think you`re doing a fine job on those cones/hats ,certainly not the easiest thing in the world to do ,and their size does not help.

If you can build that kit ,you can build anything !!

Keep up the good work ,I`m enjoying watching this build.

Cheers

Paul T
 
Thanks!
I've also decided that I must label each booster and make sure when I sand the spider beams to make a booster fit right I put the same booster back later. These will not be precision made pieces that can be interchanged./QUOTE]

Probably a good idea to number the boosters and their positions on the main body.
For me, this was the hardest of the Zooch kits to build but also a real favorite in his series. I haven't flown mine yet.
That and the larger (BT-60 sized) Mercury Redstone sit on the display shelf. Most all others (12 so far) from Zooch have flown.
 
I think you`re doing a fine job on those cones/hats ,certainly not the easiest thing in the world to do ,and their size does not help.

If you can build that kit ,you can build anything !!

Keep up the good work ,I`m enjoying watching this build.

Cheers

Paul T

Thanks for the kind words and encouragement. I'm having fun building it and a lot of fun posting in this thread. I've never done a build thread before but really like watching other people's builds progress as they post each day.

I'm glad you're enjoying this one.
 
I too stampeded towards the Sputnik for my first Zooch build, but the 50th Anniversary was fast approaching. With all of these build threads even the first timers are using great techniques and getting results. Looking back I am surprised mine even turned out, with all my bad techniques like not having made multiple copies and slopping on Sig sanding sealer to fill in those gaps. Soon all these new BARs will he hitting the launch sites with swank new R-7s ready to impress, Zoochtopia at last. It’s a Zoochy Zooch world. Watch out Antsronauts, your rides are here!
 
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Its fun to read this one cos this is a real build....none of hou take it out the box and glue a few fins on.

Remember it took the Russians about 10 years to get the R7 working and they had a shedfull of German Scientists to lend a hand :)
 
Its fun to read this one cos this is a real build....none of hou take it out the box and glue a few fins on.
Snip :)

Zoocher R7's: Real Kits For Real Men . . . And Women . . . and even Ants! But like the Duke says about strong whiskey "It ain't fer children!" And you thought rolling and building those boosters was tough, now you have to put them on straight! Apogee doesn't list them as skill levels 4 and 5 fer nothin'. The days of just shaking the box and having the kit roll out are over. We make R7's the old fashioned way, we earn them!
 
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Mushtang...you are doing a great job....I am a newbie and I am learning from your build thread..lots of good tips so thank you!

I built Dr. Zooch's Soyuz...and I struggled with it (I am a newbie....) I eventually gave up and went to 65 lb paper for my boosters because I just couldn't get it to roll correctly.... I have 7 flights on her and she flies great! I was surprised (not sure why) but I thought the way I assembled it that I had to have done something wrong...and I was waiting for a Vanguard moment on ignition with the rocket ripping itself to pieces.....but this thing flies straight as an arrow!

I have learned a lot from the guys on this board since then...I have been eyeing the Vostok to kinda try it again...and I actually like the lines of the Vostok better...keep up the great work...I am enjoying your build thread!
 
Its fun to read this one cos this is a real build....none of hou take it out the box and glue a few fins on.

Remember it took the Russians about 10 years to get the R7 working and they had a shedfull of German Scientists to lend a hand :)

Most of the Germans had been sent home before R-7 got really beyond the paper phase...

The Russians only got "second string" Germans because most of the "stars" of their rocket program surrendered to the US forces and were brought to the States under Operation Paperclip.

Make no mistake, the Russians used the Germans they had available... even went so far as to throw a wild all-night party, got them sloppy drunk on vodka, and marched them to the station at gunpoint to be evacuated to the Soviet Union after the war (their earliest "collaboration" with the Russians was in what became East Germany after the war. Once the Soviets brought them back to Russia, they set them up in a lab and basically they and Korolev and his team flew some V-2's and recreated the V-2 in a Russian built version... The R-1 and it's improved successor, R-2... https://www.economicexpert.com/a/R:1:rocket.htm

Basically as soon as the Korolev OKB-1 design team learned everything they could from the Germans, they sidelined them. By the time of the R-2, the Russians had a pretty solid grasp of the German technology and were improving upon it, so the Germans really didn't have much else they could teach them since Korolev was improving the state of the art beyond what they were doing.

The US, on the other hand, was FAR behind and TOTALLY reliant on the Germans for large booster development and orbital launch capability and such...

Later! OL JR :)
 
My next step was to sand the balsa discs a little smaller so they'd fit in the bottoms of the boosters. I cut them out using a circle template that was 1-1/4", but the circle template in the instructions is closer to 1-3/16", so I knew they'd be big and require reducing. I didn't want to cut them out using the 1-1/8" diameter template and try to embiggen them.

I did, however, use the 1-1/8" template to draw a circle on the disc to give me a reference. That circle would tell me how fast I'm removing material as I sand and if I kept the balsa at approx the same distance from the circle I'd be more likely to end up with a round disc instead of an egg shape or oval.

As I was sanding the first disc I also realized I should sand the edges at a slight angle since the discs were going to be glued into a cone and not a cylinder. The angle had to be VERY slight, but I was careful. I sanded some, tried a test fit, sanded more, tried another test fit, etc. until I snuck up on the correct size. I wanted these to be a tight fit for maximum support and tube strength. If they were too small and pulled the sides of the tube bottom in, it would weaken the tube and make it easier to crush on accident while working on it.

When I finished with a disc I made sure to label it with the tube number so that I wouldn't mix them up. They were all very close to the same size, but not exact, and they were not interchangeable.

I *almost* screwed up royally, but caught myself in time. I was excited about finishing a disc and getting it perfectly sized and reached for the glue to go ahead and glue it in place, but when I remembered the witches hat had not been glued in place and was sitting on the table in front of me I put the glue back down. That could have been BAD. I decided to finish all the discs and glue the hats and discs in place in the correct order.

Here's all the discs dry fitted in place.
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Once I finished sizing the discs I put in the hats, adjusted them into the correct angle by holding them up to the main body, and then dripped some CA around the seam between the hat and the booster tube. A little smoothing with a small scrap of card stock, and blowing on the glue to let it dry, and those hats weren't going anywhere.

With all 4 hats in place it was time to glue in the discs. The tubes had a bit of overlap where the inside glue tab started. After putting glue on the edge of the disc I had to start inserting the edge of the disc near the overlap first, otherwise it wouldn't slide in easy. The overlap on the inside would block the disc. Dry fitting these over and over taught me that, and I'm glad I figured it out before trying to glue it.

Here's the tubes with the hats and discs glued in place and ready for the next step.
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The instructions then say to cut the fins out of the balsa sheet using the template provided. It was easy enough to cut the triangle out of the card stock and then trace 4 fins onto the balsa. From reading other threads, and from the note on the template, I knew to keep the edge of the fin that was to be the leading edge parallel to the wood grain.

The triangle was a small right triangle with the hypotenuse being the leading edge. As I was tracing the triangle onto the balsa I started to attempt to reduce the cutting by having 2 fins share an edge, but since there was plenty of balsa I decided against it and spaced them out a little. I still have room to cut out a few more if I mess up the fins.

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After cutting them I rounded over the leading edge with sandpaper. I couldn't tell if the instructions intended them to be rounded over or pointed. It said something similar to, "Sand the leading edge to a sharp aerodynamic shape", but I opted for rounded over.
 
After the glue dried on the booster witches hats and balsa discs the next thing to do is add a couple of straps around the bottom of the tubes. The instructions show the dimensions from the bottom of the tube that the straps need to be placed and tell you to cut 1/16" wide strips of card stock and glue them to those locations. It sounds simple enough.

I guess I didn't need to include this picture, but I cut the straps from the scrap cardstock that was leftover from my multiple copies I printed out. I used my metal ruler as a straight edge to run my hobby knife down to make sure it was a straight cut. I don't have the skill to cut that perfectly with scissors.
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First I made a single mark, 7/8" up from the bottom, and took the strap and dry fitted it around the tube. Immediately I realized two things, 1) the strap wouldn't stay at the proper distance all the way around, and 2) because the strap wasn't curved when it was cut out it wouldn't go around the cone shaped tube correctly, it tended to turn down towards the bottom. If the tube was a cylinder it would have worked, but the cone shape made it tricky. I solved the first problem by adding a lot more marks around the tube, I solved the second problem by getting lucky and accidentally figuring out a good way to do this.

It took a long time, but I was able to hold the ruler up to the tube, make a small mark, turn the tube a little, reposition the ruler, make another mark, etc., etc., over and over, until my back started to hurt. And when that tube was done I only had to do it 3 more times.

Here's a tube with all the markings on it.
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The method I decided to use to glue the straight straps onto a conical surface was to glue a little at a time and push the strap around to force it to follow the marks. Where I got lucky was when I spread glue onto the strap with my finger the 1/16" wide strip became a lot more pliable than it was dry, and made it possible to easily force the strap into place.

Here's the steps I ended up taking. I'd start by taking the long strip of cardstock and dry wrapping it around and marking where the end overlapped. Like this.
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Then I'd mark the other side of the strap where the mark I just made was. I guess I could have just used the side I'd just marked, but in dry fitting the strap it formed a curve in it and I didn't want to curve the cardstock the other way. I'm sure it wouldn't have made a difference, but that's what I did.

I laid the strap on the table and put a little bit of glue on it and then smeared it with my finger. I was careful not to get any glue past the mark. Here's the glue before I smeared it all over the surface.
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Starting at the booster seam, I placed the strap just below my marks. I didn't cover them up so I could see exactly where the strap was all the way around. I held the strap in place, pushed it down to the next mark, held it for a moment to stick, and pressed the strap to the next mark, slowly moving all the way around.

Here's a picture of the strap being glued down onto the pencil marks around the tube.
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As I mentioned earlier, the strap was a little pliable after I put on the glue and was easy to push onto the pencil marks if I went slow. When the glued section was all on, and the mark I made on the strap was down on the tube seam, I used the hobby knife to cut the strap at the mark and held it in place. A couple of times I had to add more glue to the strap after cutting because it had dried enough to not hold, but after adding a little it would stay in place.

One cut down the side of my scrap cardstock gave me a 1/16" wide strap that was long enough for 2 straps on the tube. The second went on the same way. Before I dry fitted the next strap using the piece I just used, I used scissors to cut the end so I'd know I was starting off with a good square end.

Here is a tube with both straps glued in place. By making the seam of the strap at the seam of the tube I know it will be hidden and I didn't have to make it meet perfectly. The tube pencil marks are right on the edge of the straps, but still visible, showing me that the straps are all positioned correctly, and when I paint the boosters the marks will be covered.

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