Explorer&Space Station Aquarius downscales

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I wish I could get an assortment of the colors: gold, silver, bronze, copper. With shipping a little less than $0.50/page

you can get this stuff at Michaels, Joanne Fabrics or Hobby Lobby. I've bought an assortment of metallic colors before. you can also buy one sheet at a time usually. Michaels has a 50% off one item coupon for this weekend.
 
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I basically used the same window template as the first prototype, but trimmed in half the outer transition and used as a concave collar instead of a continuation of the convex window.

by trimmed in half, are you saying the radius of the concave outer transition collar is smaller? in other words, is this the thin black #1 transition made thinner and turned around to be white? as it is, it seems to be too big to fit the canopy.
 
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Not sure if the camera on my tablet can pick up any difference, I took the metallic Sharpie to the boundary and major divisions of the fin solar panels and edges. Looks a little shiny in person. The left is plain white paper, on the right is the sharpied one. Not fine enough tip to go between all the cells.

Sharpie over a larger area is not too pretty, leaves lots of streaks. This is just a test build until I get that printable metallic paper. Here’s the aft end, all sharpied up. Not really liking how the sharpie metallic treatment turned out.

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Yes, that is basically what I did, the full thickness of the #1 transition was too wide for a collar, the inside matches up with the #2 part, I trimmed the outer portion. I kind of eyeballed and trimmed by hand, but I plan to make an update to the printable template to better match the original. I also trim the hole for the window by hand after lightly tracing the size of the window on the cone, then make little adjustments. Once I have a bettter idea of the size of the hole for the window, I will try to add cut lines to he individual transitions on the template, still a work I progress, it takes me a couple of experimental builds to fine tune these things. Still working on the payload and nose cone for the sister kit.
 
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Explorer Space Station Aquarius?

Sorry, wrong nose cone. Man, that combination looks really terrible, sorry for posting that.
 
Space Stagin' Aquarius, just use the station aft as a booster :)

That is actually a great idea! I was initially thinking of using a 13mm engine mount, but will have to check final weight and maybe go with an 18mm. But, as a 2, or 3, stager, that would be totally awesome: 18mm-13mm 2 stager, could even do 24mm-18mm-13mm 3 stage, scaling up the fin span a little for each of the boosters. Thanks for the idea, I like it. Just need to add a simple vented coupler tube for a short-gap stager. Will try that when I get that metallic paper. Would be easy enough to print scaled up solar panel fins, but might keep the missile pods at 13mm φ for lower drag, but maybe add a fourth to the booster.
 
getting started with the transitions with artwork for the SSA nose/payload.
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I managed to line up gaps in the windows along the seams in the cone.

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kind of wishing I put in an engine hook for 18mm engines now, my original plan was to install a 13mm mount, with all the drag not sure if it would make it to 150'-200' which is good for small fields. Thinking about making a booster stage or two for this one, but should have done through-the-wall fins.

one more picture, with an Estes MR kit for size reference, and a 13mm and 18mm engine mount tube.
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Got my pack of metallic paper, will make a booster section for 18mm engine mount that basically duplicates the bottom section that is colored with the metallic Sharpie. Hopefully the solar panels will print okay on the silver paper. Not sure if I want to roll all those missile pods again, or cut those 13mm discs. Might just use four fins all the same solar panel type.

update: the black ink prints very crisp lines on the metallic paper. The blue solar cells show up very faint, might need to adjust the color to a darker shade of blue rather than the original decal scan's light blue color. Still looks okay, but not as vibrant blue color as I would like. Not sure how other artwork would look when ink-jet printed. I haven't cut the parts out and tried gluing them up yet.
 
18mm booster printed on the metallic silver paper, this could also be used as the lower portion of the sustainer as well. Solar panel cells were extended to make a longer span, keeping the two inch chord length. 18mm tube and coupler to go over bottom of sustainer, will add vent holes later, 30mm fin can tube. Will use the cardboard sheet that cam with the paper pack to laminate the four fins. Might still make the yellow missile pods, but those are more labor intensive with all the end cap discs, prefer to keep the booster 4 fins for better tumble recovery also.


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I know there is nothing like a real painted or monocote covered model with actual decals, the cardstock printed rocket method is a short cut, but for downscales kind of a fun alternative technique for a quick build on a rainy or cold day when you can’t spray paint.
 
Space Stagin' Aquarius, just use the station aft as a booster :)

Tested out the metallic ink-jet printer paper, more of a shimmer than a true metallic, but looks okay, maybe a little better than the Sharpie treatment. 18mm booster to 13mm sustainer. Stretched the booster fins a little. Thanks for the idea! Will need to figure out nose weight, would like to keep total sustainer weight as light as possible to allow it to be launched single stage, might need a removable nose weight for two-stage. Would probably look better with a shorter distance between the booster and sustainer, could have recessed the sustainer engine mount a little more, but not too shabby.

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the other technique is to simulate a metallic appearance using color shaded gradients from white to light gray, like on the R2-D2 droid paper template. This makes a metallic glare from a certain point of view... I almost think that color gradient technique looks just as good as either the metallic Sharpie or this shimmer paper, and you can just print that on regular white paper with better results when printing out multi-color artwork.
 
Dare I add a third stage? Hmmm... would probably never see it again if I put a 24mm booster as the third stage.
 
Those upscales are really impressive. My garage does not have that much space. The only way I can add to my rocket collection is to downsize my collection :)
 
finally I made the nosecone from your png file:
Fantastic! I updated that first post in the thread with a version that has a 1-inch square reference. I have a few updates planned to include the cut line for the window opening on those three transitions, and the collar on the original is not quite constant width, more of an ellipse than a circle, so I might add a new part for the collar. I did go a little overboard with the corporate logo artwork, kind of looks like NASCAR. Once you get the hang of it, not too hard, just a bunch of transitions attached to each other. Nice job. The #1 tube 24mm portion could be rolled around the same engine casing mandrel that you use to make the main body tube, or just roll one of those a little longer and cut a portion from it. I also need to work on the glue tabs, I usually just freehand cut those after I cut the parts out, but it makes things a lot easier if you have proper glue tabs on the printout. I got sidetracked into making the Space Station (& Stagin') Aquarius before doing the finishing touches on this one. And both of these were a sidetrack from a cardstock V2 I had printed out and was planning to build... oh well.
 
I actually didn't use any glue tabs. I glue the copier paper printout to 65lb card stock and cut out 2 of each transition. One of the transition pieces gets trimmed about 1mm shorter in length and gets glued to the inside of the regular size transition. I now have a laminate of paper - card stock - paper - card stock. I also put the transition on something round like a small paper cup until the glue dries. Once dry the transition piece holds it's shape well. These transitions are now thick enough that I glue them together edge to edge. Once dried I coat the inside with white glue. I guess I did make one glue tab to glue the two halves together.

I thought cutting the hole for the window was challenging.

I think the size will be ok. It may be just a bit too small, but if it is I'll just wrap paper around the bottom tube part until it matches the body tube.

I love the corporate logo artwork by the way.

Can't wait to see the V2. I started one but got confused with the fins. Thought I'd make them more simple.
 
The glue tabs are kind of like couplers, they help to line up the parts and give strength to the joints. Look at the Eric Truax nose cones, they show how the glue tabs can interlock with each other. I need to spend some time drawing them up like that.
https://rocketry.wordpress.com/ultimate-paper-rocket-guide/paper-rocket-partial-builds/#Eric


https://www.currell.net/models/v2.htm
That is the V2 model, a few model rocket conversions have shown up here on TRF, I was going to do a 13mm downscale. Those fins might not be strong enough for flight, can always paper over balsa or laminate several layers of cardstock for extra strength.
 
yep, I've made the Eric Truax nose cones with and without glue tabs. I seem to get better results if I go tab-less. I also coat the inside of the nose cone with epoxy. I haven't flown any of my tab-less nose cones yet, but they seem quite robust.
 
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Tried one more update to the nose to get the window more full size in proportion to the original. I think I did a better job with the smaller window, but you get the idea. Either one works.
 
I plan to make one more update to match this latest prototype nose cone. I added cut lines for the window opening, and one more transition for the window collar so you can use all of the original window parts. The window collar also will have trim lines to make it wider at the front and back and thinner on the sides. I also deleted all the NASCAR-style logos (or NASA-car) they were just too large for the scale and would not be readable if scaled down too much. I tend to go overboard with those. Compared to the USA flag and the doors, those logos were really huge.

The correct scale sized window version looks much better on the rocket than the one with the smaller window. I don’t plan to make another one, I did a lot of trimming to fit by hand and it could have been cleaner, and I forgot to sharpie the edges of the window parts black before glueing, but will tweak the template one more time based on my latest build.

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I forgot about the display nozzle. I might work up something for that next.
 
I don't think I ever posted this PDF version of my template...these fins are marginally too large for cardstock, might want to use a thin balsa sheet and paper them with the printed template. Feel free to post a picture of your build, if you attempt this one.

My Space Station Aquarius template is too large to post on the forum.
 

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