Manwithbeers
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- Jan 7, 2004
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I have this tube I wanted to try to use to build a rocket. Actually I have a limitless suppy of them. The tube is 86mm OD and 76mm ID. Might make a good heavy 75mm motor tube but to play with it I made a simple 3 fin rocket that I designed with VCP.
I made another foam core nose cone for it. Usually when making a foam cone I fiberglass it with West Systems and standard E-cloth cut in three or four pieces for a good fit along the length of the cone.
I had this cloth tape I bought on a whim a while ago and never found a use for it. It's 2 inches wide, maybe 6oz thickness... anyway I hoed to use it for fin attachment/reinforcement and never used it so I decided to try it on the foam cone.
I wound it around as I applied epoxy with a short bristle brush. It was really easy and way cleaner than the previous method. I used a 1/4 inch overlap all the way to the tip which had two strips of the cloth tape overlaped over the tip and then the tape was wound over that. I like this appraoch and I'll do it again.
After the initial fiberglass layer I cleaned it up a bit and then used a large putty knife to put on a layer of epoxy with light filler (red stuff) to fill in the uneven valleys. when that was hard I sanded on a belt sander then coated with 2 coats of epoxy. (Wash and sand between coats). The photo shows the cone at this stage. I normally paint now with primer but my wife thinks this tye-dye look is cool and suggests I keep it this way. I'm undecided.
As shown in the picture you can make out the line that the tape was wound with filler between the overlap area. I made the cone via a hot wire cutter from a 1.7 upscale of a BT55 balsa cone I had in my scratch parts kit.
Just though I might share. It was an easy project. Took maybe 5 hours of work over the past 10 days from idea to finished... kinda.
I made another foam core nose cone for it. Usually when making a foam cone I fiberglass it with West Systems and standard E-cloth cut in three or four pieces for a good fit along the length of the cone.
I had this cloth tape I bought on a whim a while ago and never found a use for it. It's 2 inches wide, maybe 6oz thickness... anyway I hoed to use it for fin attachment/reinforcement and never used it so I decided to try it on the foam cone.
I wound it around as I applied epoxy with a short bristle brush. It was really easy and way cleaner than the previous method. I used a 1/4 inch overlap all the way to the tip which had two strips of the cloth tape overlaped over the tip and then the tape was wound over that. I like this appraoch and I'll do it again.
After the initial fiberglass layer I cleaned it up a bit and then used a large putty knife to put on a layer of epoxy with light filler (red stuff) to fill in the uneven valleys. when that was hard I sanded on a belt sander then coated with 2 coats of epoxy. (Wash and sand between coats). The photo shows the cone at this stage. I normally paint now with primer but my wife thinks this tye-dye look is cool and suggests I keep it this way. I'm undecided.
As shown in the picture you can make out the line that the tape was wound with filler between the overlap area. I made the cone via a hot wire cutter from a 1.7 upscale of a BT55 balsa cone I had in my scratch parts kit.
Just though I might share. It was an easy project. Took maybe 5 hours of work over the past 10 days from idea to finished... kinda.
