Icarus - Liberty III

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Fit up main fin skins, took some time with the tapered body and airfoil profile. I’m glad 3M keeps blue tape in stock, rates right up there with sand paper as essential.
Once the skins were fit, removed them one at a time and practiced sliding them on, like stuffing an envelope in reverse. The tape held as long as I used 1” filament tape at the narrow pinch point. Next applied epoxy to the inner fin structure then spread and slid the skins on. Starting at the tip I removed the first piece of tape, spread the halves with a small flat screwdriver and added a generous bead between the skins, then leap frogged around the fin adding additional tape along the way. Between the two filament bands I left a small gap and injected epoxy (Loctite 120 Hysol with mixing tip.
 
Fit up main fin skins, took some time with the tapered body and airfoil profile. I’m glad 3M keeps blue tape in stock, rates right up there with sand paper as essential.
Once the skins were fit, removed them one at a time and practiced sliding them on, like stuffing an envelope in reverse. The tape held as long as I used 1” filament tape at the narrow pinch point. Next applied epoxy to the inner fin structure then spread and slid the skins on. Starting at the tip I removed the first piece of tape, spread the halves with a small flat screwdriver and added a generous bead between the skins, then leap frogged around the fin adding additional tape along the way. Between the two filament bands I left a small gap and injected epoxy (Loctite 120 Hysol with mixing tip.
 

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Decided to make life easy priming and sanding the capsule windows and forward decks before attaching the upper nose skin. Failed to get pics attaching skin and side fins, back on pic track cutting and fitting side fin extensions that finish up to main body tying capsule shape and lines. Used .062 G10 for outer fin surface and .031 gusset to support a similar detail as the capsule window decks to close the area back to the body tube.
 

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Absolutely gorgeous! Really awesome craftsmanship, I love it! Wow
Been following your Boom XB-1, anything with an “X” is exciting and your build, “WOW“ back at ya.
X-15 & XB70 are in my fleet, someday,,,,,,,,,,,Boom?
 
Missed some fit up and attachment pictures again with the capsule fin extensions on the main body. Now attached the fine tune match between capsule and booster, it’s a larger area than I’d hoped for but very thin coats. The fiberglass skins are +- .05, not much room to shave so a +-.05 fill layer here, there, and everywhere.
Let cure,,,,,,fill n spot,,,,,sand,,,,,,,beer, fill n spot,,,,,,,,s,,,a,,,n,,,d,,,,,,,beer, etc.
 

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Capsule ready for final light sanding pass & color, taking a second look had to think about changing the name to Evolution III ?
 

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Wow, thank’s for all the support forum folks! I’ve cought up to the first pics posted with base primer coat. Local weekend weather is not letting me get much progress on color coats, I have buillt up some decorative inserts for the two aux 29mm motor tubes on each side. Anyone know where to get a couple nozzles to finish these off?
 

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Wow, thank’s for all the support forum folks! I’ve cought up to the first pics posted with base primer coat. Local weekend weather is not letting me get much progress on color coats, I have buillt up some decorative inserts for the two aux 29mm motor tubes on each side. Anyone know where to get a couple nozzles to finish these off?
Out local Mexican Restaurant has plastic chip hot sauce cups that are a bit larger than the Wendy’s ketchup cups......?
 
Holy eff Batman this is amazing workmanship. Getting turrets here and gonna start busting off bad words because I have no words that can express the sheer beauty of this project. Like a smooth 27 year old Blonde in a Red Ferrari! Hot!ferrari.jpg

Remember this?
 
Yup, very Flattered with your comparison, a 308 & Christy B‘s curves~
Similar to those smooth 27 year young curves warped in white the Icarus base coat will be dawned in white!
 
Yup, very Flattered with your comparison, a 308 & Christy B‘s curves~
Similar to those smooth 27 year young curves warped in white the Icarus base coat will be dawned in white!
I certainly hope Icarus won’t be “warped in white,” but I am sure it will be spectacular!

(sorry, couldn’t resist. Some typos are just funny, not as funny as when I had a post that I failed to proofread that substituted “ball sack” for “balsa”, but still funny.)

I am looking forward to progression of this great build thread.
 
Had a little detour in progress, though hit me if first flight has some type of failure I-3 goes in the dumpster. And other thoughts/ideas were rattling around during this build maybe get some insurance for an I-4 with out redoing the capsule steps and details. Capsules Port and Starboard sides have nice sharp lines on center of the fins so using the newly named “prototype capsule” as plug to make up a mold to lay up replacements if nessesary.
Prepped the primed plug with a wet pass of 1000g and clear gloss coat hopefully make it easier to get all the release steps off down the road.
Using scrap 3/4” 7ply HDO form ply for the plug base level‘d down the capsule outline and cut the pattern 1/4” under size under the fins and nose, neat cut along the shoulder and lower fin edges. Cutout the center and routed the 1/4” under cuts with 45 degree bit, then trimmed, filled, routed, filed, and fitted along the constant changing radius until leading fin edges sat about 1/8” above the base. Added legs to the ends and filled a few over routes, nail holes, dents, & dings to cleanup the base.
In the long run half shells wI’ll lighten up the nose, shorten the build time, and add some utility in the nose for electronics and such.
 

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