Madcow 4" Phoenix "Build...Tear...Rebuild" Thread

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Today I sealed in the decals and vinyl bands with a clearcoat. I looked to see if I had Semi-gloss, but instead I only found 6 cans of Gloss. 😆

So gloss it'll be! The duller paint underneath combined with the "not really glossy" gloss had a pretty good result imho.
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So here it is now. Pretty close to done and I just need to handle the nose weight & anchor and add on some rail buttons.

I really love the way it turned out! (Phew! :p)
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Night before my club's first launch I decided to change the boring rail buttons for a pair of conformal metal rail guides I've had for years... I thought this would be a really a great look for the Phoenix!
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(Estes rod is for alignment.)

However, one reason I hadn't used them before was that they are designed to be installed with 3M double sided tape and that's probably only good on unpainted fiberglass or Quantum tubing since the adhesion shouldn't be to any paint layer imho.

I got around this issue by first drilling a hole in each of the corners (as seen above).
 
Then I drilled 4 holes into the bt under each spot - aligned with the rail guide holes.
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Finally I used JB Weld, making sure it went in the holes in the bt and rail guide.
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For me, this provided good surface adhesion in addition to extra "JB Weld rivets" which help with lateral (?) forces as the rocket rises off the rail.
 
Update: I sent the bird up on an H220 and it came in ballistic and lawn darted in :eek:
...with a nice whistle. :rolleyes:
Screenshot_20230507_222516_Facebook.jpg
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There's heavy sticky clay about a foot down, so I had to really dig since the nose just wouldn't pull out (I actually bent the all thread pulling on it).
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Even this took a bunch more digging since I was afraid of pulling the eyebolt out.

I'll still need to review the motor, etc. to figure this out, but it doesn't look too bad considering it came in from over 1k (some tube crinkling on one side).
20230507_121541.jpg

She'll rise again! ;) 🐣:haironfire:
 
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Actually, the mud was covering some of the damage. Here are better pics, but it still survived it pretty well with the worst of it on the back.

Front:
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Back:
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I think I'll rebuild it as dual deploy. I'm tired of relying on just the motor eject and Chute Release.
 
Here's the culprit for the failed deployment. Still getting opinions on the cause, but I haven't seen this before - it appears the ejection charge (and delay) got sucked into the motor, which was over pressurized. There was a "pop" noticed during boost.

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Here's the culprit for the failed deployment. Still getting opinions on the cause, but I haven't seen this before - it appears the ejection charge (and delay) got sucked into the motor, which was over pressurized. There was a "pop" noticed during boost.

View attachment 579516
View attachment 579517

Wow, that's an interesting motor failure.

I feel like you could repair that airframe damage by adding coupler(s) to the inside, but cutting that part out is probably better in the long run.
 
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Here's the culprit for the failed deployment. Still getting opinions on the cause, but I haven't seen this before - it appears the ejection charge (and delay) got sucked into the motor, which was over pressurized. There was a "pop" noticed during boost.

View attachment 579516
View attachment 579517
I had this same exact issue with a DMS J435 a few years ago. Never ejected, did hear a pop sound during boost but we figured it was probably the rocket going past mach or something else. It lawndarted and the cap over the ejection powder was still there. Sucks because it was a 3" HoJo
 
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