Fliskits... Upscale Project: Now Rebuilding the 3X Borealis

[gary7]

Back to work.

Spent over two hours tonight cutting a fin guide and tweaking the fins. The first picture shows the FB fins and rings dry fitted to the rocket. The second picture shows the fin guide in place (it's holding things together so I couldn't take it off for these pics). I'll try to remember to remove it before the ringtail gets epoxied on. It also shows the small, ~ 5 inch ring tail that I made what seems like months ago. If you look closely enough, you can see the small ring tail is too big. The first time I made one on the original up-scale, it fit perfectly. But now I'll have to redo this one. That is another couple of hours of work turning a block to wrap my paper and/or some fiberglass around. Haven't decided what to do here yet.



Just when I thought I was getting close to paint, I discovered this evening there is way too much more tweaking to do on these fins and rings. Had hopes of getting it done for MWP 11 but I refuse to beat myself up to get it done. If it isn't done, so what. I need to relax before my trip to Princeton next week.

 

[gary7]

(To borrow a phrase from R.E.O.'s Kevin Kronin)

Are we ready to finish this project, maybe with a small change of plans? Are we ready once again for the 3X Borealis to fly?

It has been 20 months since I worked on this thing so yes, it has been way to long. I may have finally come up with a better way to finish the job too. We shall see.

Tomorrow!

Details to follow.

 

[gary7]

After further struggles trying to come up with an acceptable alternative to launch lugs and a rod I gave up.

Here I am aligning the lugs. The forward lug on the forward airframe is new. When previously flown even with very low wind speeds, the rocket wanted to tilt and waver a bit so I think this will definitely help keep it stable on the pad. If I remove that rod I have a very straight view right thru the three lugs that will remain. The forward two are just taped on and are temporary for the alignment.



The lug on the air frame is paper, glued onto paper with Titebond II. The paper lug that will be attached the "bat" fin will be attached with epoxy. Both will be glass reinforced.

 

[gary7]

Then entire ring fin assembly has not been secured to the rocket yet. That is probably the second most difficult thing to do with this repair. I just have to figure out whether to put the fins on first then the rings or the rings on first then the fins. Either way it isn't going to be easy or fun.

A couple of additions will be made to the fins to help keep them in place. What might those additions be you ask? We shall see.

Hope to get it all done this week while I am also rebuilding the Big Nuke that CATO'd last fall at MWP from a bad motor. Also have to replace a fin on the Minnie Mag and redo the entire fin can on a 3 inch dual deploy that keeps breaking fins. Lots of work to do and only this week to get done as much as I can. Too many broken rockets laying around here for too long.

I'll keep the work here posted, the other stuff is pretty standard repair type stuff, most of you know how to do those things. Wish I knew how to finish this one. I am kind of ad libbing a bit here. As for now, just waiting for the lug glue to dry while I set out to work on something else, like a nap.