Lakeroadster's Lifting Rocket

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What's your speed off the rod? I'd be nervous about asking a single E15 to lift a 1 lb rocket.

Also, when simming with the E15, be careful about which version you use, there is an old and a new, I forget how to tell which is which. o_O
 
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As we say up here in New England (Massachusetts and north is true New England to us) that rocket is "Wicked Pissa" . And then ad all the detail drawings , professional work all around. I've been watching from afar for sometime now. Again,thanks for posting all the detail drawings. WOW ! Me-self and computers, or any electronic devise for that matter do not play well together.
 
What's your speed off the rod? I'd be nervous about asking a single E15 to lift a 1 lb rocket.

Also, when simming with the E15, be careful about which version you use, there is an old and a new, I forget how to tell which is which. o_O

Thanks again Neil. 28 ft/s off the rod is a bit slow using the E15 (it would look awesome though). The E30 is much better at 42 ft/s

As we say up here in New England (Massachusetts and north is true New England to us) that rocket is "Wicked Pissa" . And then ad all the detail drawings , professional work all around. I've been watching from afar for sometime now. Again,thanks for posting all the detail drawings. WOW ! Me-self and computers, or any electronic devise for that matter do not play well together.

Thanks. I've been a CAD Monkey since the early 1980's.. without it I feel like one hand is tied behind my back. I've seen your work here... You sir are a steely eyed model rocket wizard.
 
I like it, less of a kick in the pants. And it works well with the D-12's also. An E-15 in the Cargo Bay and no cluster motors might be a good initial shake down run.

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How big is your recovery field? Are you gonna get this back if it goes to 1200 feet with the Full Monte?
An option with a central E that can do the job itself would be put adapters in the clusters for A4-3Ts for show. They won't boost your altitude much, they shouldn't cause much of a problem with eccentric thrust if one or more doesn't light (and likely won't even take it off the pad IF the E doesn't light, so less likely to land shark), and they will still look cool.
 
In an attempt to add some detail to the Mercury capsule I searched for details on the dimple pattern that was used back in the day.

I found a nice card stock template that had some pretty good detail. The plan is to basically "decoupage" these onto the balsa nose cone and then clear coat it with the same spar urethane I'm planning to use on the fins.

Below are a few iterations of the wraps. I think I like the plain black the best. What's your thoughts?

I did the decoupage thing last April on an enclosure I made to protect the plastic oil reservoir on my 2-post lift. Basically the same concept: Use thinned Elmers white glue to attach the paper to the wood, then apply the spar urethane.


Mercury Capsule Template.jpg TLR-2 REV 01 Sheet 8 of 8.pdf.jpg 004.JPG003.JPG 002.JPG 001.JPGGuard 001 2.jpg
 
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try it on a scrap piece of balsa first to see how the decoupage and the printer ink get along.

Sound advice!

Is "plain black" what is shown in the first two pictures? If so that is my favorite as well. Are you going to get rid of the black-on-black text or leave it as shown?

I'm not sure what's up with the text.. it looks good in the CAD Model, but not in the printed version. I posted a screen grab below. I think I may have to go in and outline the text in white.

Here's the mock up of the other wraps. Needs a bit of fine tuning but it's coming along nicely. I'll need to paint some of the areas that end up uncovered black, maybe before doing the decoupage?

002.JPG 001.JPG TLR-2 REV 01 Sheet 8 of 8.pdf.jpgMercury Capsule Template.jpg
 

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Well... that was easy. I just used Elmers White Glue. The glue softened the paper and made it super easy to get a good tight.

After a few coats of spar urethane I'll paint the tip grey, the silver and the red stripe near the base.

Remember the goal is to simulate a rocket made from salvage yard Mercury / Gemini / Apollo parts, crusty steam punk look. This should fit that spec.


001.JPG Mercury Friendship 7.jpgGemini 8 Capsule – 1966.jpg
 
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SRB nozzle shrouds. I made some 1/2" balsa plywood, then cut the shrouds using a jigsaw, and sanded them on a belt sander. I'll install them after I fill and finish the cluster area of the rocket. That way they won't get in the way during finishing.

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Also shot some clear on the Mercury capsule. I ended up using Rustoleum 2X Clear instead of Spar Urethane... because... I've used it for sealing decals and I had a can available.

When I first sprayed it on the test piece it was splotchy looking. I was a bit discouraged.:( But once the clear soaked into the paper the blotches went away. :cool:

007.JPG 008.JPG

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I bought a used wood lathe this week. Wood turning is another hobby from my youth that I've been wanting to get back into. And it'll also be useful for my scratch built rockets.

Case in point: I needed some centering rings to mount the BT-50 motor tubes in the BT-52 cluster tubes. Now these are some pretty delicate centering rings, 1.140 OD x 0.970 ID. That means they are only 0.085 wall.

1st Lathe Project!

I made a mandrel using a piece of BT-50, slid the centering rings on and secured them with a couple wraps of blue painters tap. Then put this assembly in the wood lathe, sanded the ring OD with 80 grit until it was close, then finished the OD with a file.

Easy Peazy...

Once I get my lathe tools I'm wanting to make some wooden mandrels so I can make more pieces parts like these.. as well as nose cones, transitions, etc.

Here's the mandrel with rings, & the rocket cluster section. See how the rings are too big for the BT-52 cluster tube.
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Here's the lathe it's a Jet JWL-1236. It's really in excellent shape. And the guy I got it from was 4 miles from my home.
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Here's the BT-50 Mandrel and Centering Rings, before and after
012.JPG 014.JPG 015.JPG 016.JPG
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Now the rings fit great.
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Check out how thin the rings are.. The ring at the top is a std BT-50 to BT-60 which is what I modified.
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Finally got a day with temp's above 50 F.... Put 1st coat of Helmsman Spar Urethane on the fins. Love how it makes the wood grain "pop".

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Painted the Gunmetal, Silver and Red to the Mercury Capsule. The red is too large, but once I shoot the copper on the body tube I'll mask the red to be a thin stripe.

Then I'll shoot some clear over it ... that way the "sheen" will be uniform. Good enough ;-)

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Mercury Friendship 7.jpg
 
Sanded transitions today and the applied a liberal amount of CA to them (and my finger). ;)

Hoping to get some paint on this before the next snow storm rolls in later this week.

001.JPG
 
Sanded transitions today and the applied a liberal amount of CA to them (and my finger). ;)
For whatever reason, I seem to forget that I have a box full of nitrile gloves . I am reminded every time I play with CA when it comes time to sand my finger tips to get it off. And same goes when I am applying pigment. LOL. Cant teach and old dog new tricks I guess. LOL
 
Pardon my insanity..... :confused:

https://news.yahoo.com/black-hole-seen-first-time-130916365.html

The media frenzy surrounding the rendered Black Hole image (see above link) reminded me of a photo I took back when I was building the cluster section of this rocket.

I spent 10 minutes on Ipiccy and low and behold... there is a Black Hole lurking within my Lifting Rocket.

Lifting Rocket Black Hole.jpg

The Real Black Hole.jpg
 
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There is another transition maker as well as a bunch of other tools here on Wayne Hill's blog:
https://rocketry.wordpress.com/free-rocketry-tools/
Might be easier to use than the UK one cuz you can enter the BT sizes instead of mm. Also shows how you can use a separate glue strip instead of a glue tab to eliminate the overlapping "bump" of a glue tab.
The centering ring template maker is also useful. Cheers.
 
For whatever reason, I seem to forget that I have a box full of nitrile gloves . I am reminded every time I play with CA when it comes time to sand my finger tips to get it off. And same goes when I am applying pigment. LOL. Cant teach and old dog new tricks I guess. LOL

Rub fingers/hands with a light coat of petroleum jelly or, better still, Apogee sells a skin barrier cream: https://bit.ly/2VGfH0S that works even better. This way you still have the sensitivity of using fingers that gloves remove (and the darned CA still stuck to my gloves. Hated having to laboriously pull/sand/scrape little bits of glued on nitrile off of whatever I just CAd :confused: ).
 
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