Need advice on nose cones for a BT-60 Delta IV Heavy scratch build

[ebruce1361]

Greetings, everyone. I have some spare 41.6mm (Estes BT-60) tubes lying about and I'd like to make a Delta IV Heavy 3 motor cluster with them. But I can't find any commercially available nose cones that would look right on it. Big Bertha cones are close; they're about the right size, but they need to be more pointed. Am I going to have to turn my own wooden cones or is there a plastic one out there that I'm missing? Thanks!

 

[jqavins]

The nose cone (below) appears to be either straight or not quite straight sided and then rounded at the tip. The largest is a bicone with rounded tip, and the others appear to have a slight curve to the sides. The base is not tangent to the body tube, so Bertha's elliptical nose is certainly not right. I wouldn't bet on finding that unless someone sells a Delta IV kit and made the cone for that purpose.

On the other hand, a Red Nova nose cone might give you a starting point if you want to add filler on top.

 

[mbeels]

Check Balsa Machining Service. You could start with the BNC60C balsa cone and sand a rounder tip.

 

[Mugs914]

Check out Semroc. Some of these are awful close to what you are after, I believe. All are balsa, so easy to tweak the shape a bit...

https://www.erockets.biz/bnc-60/

 

[jqavins]

I wouldn't bet on finding that unless someone sells a Delta IV kit and made the cone for that purpose.

Check out Semroc. Some of these are awful close to what you are after, I believe. All are balsa, so easy to tweak the shape a bit...

Well, I stand corrected. BNC-60AL, BNC-600R, and BNC-60C0 all look quite good for the different shapes I showed above.

 

[Charles_McG]

Ask a friend to scale and print?
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3673105

 

[ebruce1361]

Mugs914, That BNC-60CO looks almost perfect! I think I'll grab up three of those and see what I can do.

Charles_McG, unfortunately I don't know anyone personally with a 3D printer who could make them for me, but I do intend to get into printing myself within the year because I have business interests for getting one as well as hobby interests. I'll go old-school with the balsa for now, but that's an idea that will absolutely be in the works for the future!