Mission Bell 18mm power low and slow

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GlenP

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This will be more of a hybrid cardstock model a basic 4FNC. A cardstock wrapped paper towel roll. Artwork is scanned and redrawn portions from a popular burrito wrap plastic bag, from which the parachute will be made. I thought I would make a rocket basically to match the colors and logo of the parachute. First iteration is a simple drawing, mostly to scale to fit a 44 mm diameter and 11" long paper towel roll. I might use balsa for the fins and cover them with paper, if I have enough of the thinner balsa stock on hand. I plan to make an 18mm motor mount and won't do TTW fins or anything fancy like that for this recycle bin rocket. Work in progress. The fins and cone shape are loosely based on the bell logo from the plastic zip bag.

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My printer can’t quite get to the paper edges, so I will maybe trim the tube down slightly to remove the unpainted portions, or add a chrome sticker wrap there.

PDF of paper wrap, I print this on 110# cardstock, then glue stick to the paper towel roll
 

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18 mm motor mount rolled from cardstock and some cereal box cardboard centering rings with home-bent retainer hook from a wiper blade metal strip. Fins next to body tube for rough idea of the outline. Fins will extend just long enough to get past the engine hook so the rocket can stand up on its own on the bottoms of the fins. I just used four ply of 110# cardstock for the fins to keep them relatively thin but should be strong enough to survive landing impact.

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For a fat tube like this I like to use a baffle to save on wadding a bit. This is a couple of offset 13 mm tubes off center in some centering rings connected via cardstock coupler to fit the paper towel tube. I will install it some where near the middle of the body. The top tube makes a good place to anchor the Kevlar line.
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Attached fins, installed baffle, rolled launch lug. next up, the nose cone, made from just a few stacked up transitions.

Of course with four fins, one is going to be slightly high so that it rests on only three of them. I will lightly sand down a fin bottom until I get all four fins to touch flat.

centering rings and transitions are made with the handy tools from PayloadBay.Com


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Very nice! I don't know what Mission Bell is but I like the color scheme & bell theme carried in the nose cone, the bottom blue edge, and the red fin design.

I find that paper towel & TP tubes tend to unravel quite easily but wrapping them helps. The inside baffle & shock cord may still tear loose though.

Is the engine hook 3" long with an engine block aft to anchor the hook from ripping rearward during ejection? Is there anything to keep the hook from pushing forward if the no engine is present?

Nice work! :)
 
Thanks, pretty fun build from a few sheets of paper and a paper towel roll.

Usually they ring a bell in the tower at a Mission to indicate a time of prayer. But if you hear one at a Hotel in California, then you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

Basically I was just going with the logo of a bell on the burrito wrap bag to make a rocket to match the parachute that comes free with a bag of flour tortillas.

The engine hook has a drop of white glue at the top edge and under the cardstock wrap, but nothing really strong enough to stop it from sliding up if you really push on it.

The parachute build is still to come…
 
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Are you going to use the burrito wrap method of folding the chute?
Nyuk, nyuk.
I should be pretty good at it, I will have to eat 16 burritos to empty the plastic zip bag that I am going to use to make the chute!

Plenty of room in this 44 mm dia (1.75” or so) body tube for a light weight LPR plastic chute.
 
you can see how I sort of traced the outline of the bell logo here to make the fin shape. I didn't want to make it look exactly like a bell, but just sort of give the suggestion of the outline. Hopefully I will get a moderate weather day soon and can hit the model with a glossy clear coat.

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After a few coats of glossy clear lacquer the colors deepen a bit and start to jump out. Hard to capture in a photo, but kind of starts looking like it was printed on a glossy photo paper, which might be another good alternative for a body tube wrap.

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PS-I colored the white edges of the fins with a color matching permanent marker before the clear coat. I should have done that with the nose cone transitions before I put them together so the white cut edges don’t show as much.
 
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