NewWay CUBIX (NWY-20) Restoration.

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Back_at_it

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While I'm still struggling with the paint scheme on my Gray Hawk, I decided to put that project aside for a little while and restore something completely different.

Digging into the box of neglected unloved and forgotten rockets, I pulled out a NewWay Rockets CUBIX. This came to me from a collection that I purchased from a school teacher that ran a rocket program at his school. When he left, the rocket program closed and he took the left over rockets with him. As you can imaging the quality of the builds are all over the place from pretty good to down right dangerous. This one falls somewhere in the middle.

Looking at the rocket I can see that it has not been flown. There are no powder marks inside the tube and it doesn't smell flown.

Overall the rocket isn't bad. There is crease in the tube where it looks like something was set on top of it. I'm not sure if NewWay sells couplers so I'll need to address this myself. Here is what we're starting with.

This first photo isn't bad. The crease in the tube isn't really visible. What we can see is that none of the wood was sealed or finished and the little bit of glue used is just barely holding the rocket together.

IMG_9227.jpgIMG_9228.jpg

This next shot, I removed the recovery system. All of there stock parts are there and in pretty good shape. I'm thinking I will reuse most of them including the rather colorful parachute. Here the crease in the tube is obvious.

IMG_9226.jpg

Here we have a couple of pics of the fins / box and motor mount. You can see that someone got carried away with glue on the mount so I won't be removing that from the rocket anytime soon. The motor clip will be removed simply because it prevents the rocket from standing on it's own.

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And finally, a pic looking down into the fin can.

Overall the parts look good and should make for a decent restoration project.

IMG_9229.jpg

Now comes the fun part. Disassembly and checking all the parts. I knew early on that I needed to fix the crease so the tube was cut in half just below the crease line.

Next was removing the box fins. The outside of the box came loose easily. Literally put just a little pressure and the whole thing collapsed. The inner fins were glued in pretty well so those were cut off and the slots cleaned up. I made replacements from scrap Balsa I had laying around. All of these will be papered and sealed with thin epoxy so no worries.

IMG_9231.jpg

That is as far as I got last night. Will be doing some more tonight after work.
 
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Rick Randol might have the right size coupler.
I doubt if Randy would carry that in inventory.
Here's the square stage coupler from the Vigilangle kit.
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Got a bit more work done last night. I decided to start with the box fin. All of the parts cleaned up nicely so I had good clean surfaces to bond. After using Thick and quick on the first joint and fighting to keep it together as the pieces are slightly warped, I decided there had to be a better way. I switched to thick CA for the remainder of the joints. Everything went together very well and the CA allowed me to get the entire box together in about 30 mins.

After letting it dry for an hour, I added some pretty good fillets to the inside as well as coated the inside walls with thinned Titebond to help with strength.

2021-06-16_6-52-44.jpg2021-06-16_6-53-11.jpg

Next it was time time to address the only issue I have with NewWay Kits. The square body tube seems to allow hot gasses to get past the wadding regardless of what or how much I use. I feel that a baffle should come with the kits. I got this prototype from Qualman a few months back and I have to say, I love the quality and fit. I put this one together with TiteBond and painted the entire thing in thinned glue for a little fire protection. Only change I made was to double up the thickness of the upper plate as I will be attaching my Kevlar here.

IMG_9233.jpg

While all that was drying, I turned my attention to the smaller fins. I removed the outer layer of the tube to allow for better penetration of the glue. Since this tube had been painted once I wanted to be sure I was attaching to clean solid material. The smaller fins were attached with Titebond and left to dry. I then came back and inserted the baffle. Below you can see the baffle inserted with the Kevlar leader attached.

IMG_9236.jpg

Now the fun part. Dealing with the dent in the tube. Since the rebuild was moving quicker than I anticipated, I didn't want to stop and wait for a coupler. After dealing with the dent, I'm not sure a coupler would have been strong enough to force it back into shape. I decided to force it in shape with Balsa. I tried various thickness until I found one that gave it the support it needed. While it looks thick and heavy, it really isn't.

I basically cut 4 pieces of balsa about 4 inches long and glued them to the inside of the tube. Forcing the pieces against each other brought the tube back in shape.

The inside of this will be beveled so there isn't a big ridge to disrupt the ejection and I will coat the inside with wood glue or epoxy to give it some fire protection.

IMG_9237.jpg

Here is a shot of where things are right now. At this rate I should have this one ready to fly in a week or so.

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Looks good.

please give a flight report. I’m guessing that box fin configuration will give you a straight flight with little or no roll, if so, this might make a nice camera rocket!
 
Looks good.

please give a flight report. I’m guessing that box fin configuration will give you a straight flight with little or no roll, if so, this might make a nice camera rocket!

Will do. I'm flying this weekend, wind permitted up at Bong in WI. and hoping to have this one done enough to fly even if it isn't painted.
 
Did you use a clamp and a piece of spare sheeting on the other side of the glued coupler to press and flatten the crease, or some other method?
And are you planning to do a Rubik's cube livery or something else?
Great job so far!
 
Did you use a clamp and a piece of spare sheeting on the other side of the glued coupler to press and flatten the crease, or some other method?
And are you planning to do a Rubik's cube livery or something else?
Great job so far!

The pieces are only about 4 inches long so I was able to use some narrow Spring clamps to keep the pieces against the outside of the tube. Once the two pieces adjacent from each other were dry I was able to wedge the additional two pieces in place and that is what forced the tube back into square.

I am going with the Rubiks cube theme although I am cutting my own vinyl which will be a little different than stock.
 
More progress on the CUBIX last night.

Got the body tubes glued back together. I needed to mix up a batch of epoxy to coat the inside of that Balsa coupler I made anyway so I went ahead an mixed up a bit more to join the tubes back together. Placed the tube in a piece of angle with some clamps to hold it straight while everything cured.

Here you can see the final fillet on the small fins. This piece is just about ready to begin filling and body working.

IMG_9258.jpg

Next up was papering the box fin. I first tried to use regular copy paper but my epoxy was too thick and wouldn't soak into it. I decided to use some regular old notebook paper instead and the results were great. Papered all four sides and let it cure for a few hours.

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Next it was time for some filler and sanding. Used Elmers wood filler and sanded with 100, 320 and finally 600 grit. This piece is read for primer.

Note the blue tape on the inside where this will eventually attach to the smaller fins. This area has been masked off to prevent primer and paint from geting on those surface.

IMG_9356.jpgIMG_9357.jpg

Next is the nose cone. The cone was saned down to match the dims of the tube. Stock, the edges hang over about 1/8 of an inch on all sides. I sanded it slightly under sized as I will build the surface back up with sanding sealer and filler.

IMG_9257.jpg


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Last thing I did before bed was add filler to the body tube to hide the cut. It was getting late and I forgot to get a pic of this.

Tonight should be sanding, test fitting the box fins and hopefully priming.
 
Nice job on the restoration. I’m glad you sanded the nose to match the tube. That was always my intention for people to do and the reason I included a sandpaper kit from the beginning.

As to the baffle idea, I’ve never had the issues with this that you have and I’m sorry for that. I lay a couple wadding sheets over the tube and use a wood dowel to push the wadding down and I push down in each corner. Then I repeat with more wadding. This method has worked for me and I’ve had very few scorched chutes. Back to the baffle. When I first started considering the idea of square rockets, a baffle for them was on my list. Carl at Semroc was helping me get started and doing all the laser cutting of my parts. I’d draw up a design for something and Carl would draw it in the right program and make them. We had a long conversation about baffles. He recommended that I not do it based on the fact that the Estes motors ejection charge was more aggressive than it used to be. He felt it might do more harm than good. So, that’s why I never made one. Maybe I should rethink that idea.
 
Nice job on the restoration. I’m glad you sanded the nose to match the tube. That was always my intention for people to do and the reason I included a sandpaper kit from the beginning.

As to the baffle idea, I’ve never had the issues with this that you have and I’m sorry for that. I lay a couple wadding sheets over the tube and use a wood dowel to push the wadding down and I push down in each corner. Then I repeat with more wadding. This method has worked for me and I’ve had very few scorched chutes. Back to the baffle. When I first started considering the idea of square rockets, a baffle for them was on my list. Carl at Semroc was helping me get started and doing all the laser cutting of my parts. I’d draw up a design for something and Carl would draw it in the right program and make them. We had a long conversation about baffles. He recommended that I not do it based on the fact that the Estes motors ejection charge was more aggressive than it used to be. He felt it might do more harm than good. So, that’s why I never made one. Maybe I should rethink that idea.

Rick, First let me thank you for bringing a very unique idea to rockets. I first saw your brand while visiting Randy at ERockets a while back. The first NewWay rocket I saw was the Sky Fighter and had to have it. I also picked up a Flat Boy an Exocet at the same time. I built the Sky Fighter right away and loved the build. I added a few of my own piece of vinyl here and there and it flew wonderfully as did the other two rockets.

The only issue I had was with scorching the parachutes. I tried Estes wadding, home wadding, dog barf but could never get it quite right. I posted about it on the forum and received a message from David at Qualman Rockets that he could design and send me a couple of prototypes. I added one to my Sky Fighter right away and was able to get out the following weekend. Three successful flights without any scorching on the recovery gear. Perfect ejection and perfect recovery.

I reported back to Qualman that they work perfect as designed and I think he put them in production but I don't see them on his site. I know that I have bought both the 1.1 and 1.33 size from him so I know they are available. I currently own five of your rockets that are built and have flown, all with baffles and have not had any issues with ejection. I do inspect my rockets after each outing and I've not seen any issues clogging, burning or damage related to the ejection.

Please continue to follow along and I hope that I do justice with restoring your CUBIX.
 
More progress last night.

Started the night off with sealing the nose cone. I brushed on 2 good coats of MixWax Sanding sealer and let that dry for about an hour. I later came back and dipped the exposed portion of the nose cone in sealer two more times to get a nice even coating.
IMG_9360.jpg

Next it was time to turn my attention to the body tube. I had previously filled the cut line with wood filler and let it dry over night. This was sanded with 100, 320 and 600 grit for a nice smooth surface. There were a couple of low spots that I filled in as well and sanded those smooth.

IMG_9358.jpg


After looking over all the parts, I decided that the box fin needed just a little more filler work and sanding. I added another super thin coat of wood filler to it and let it dry then sanded with 600 grit. At this point everything looks good enough for some filler primer. I'm sure there will be some additional filler work after the primer has dried but that is another day.
IMG_9355.jpg

I then test fit everything one last time and headed out and put everything in primer. This rocket has come a long way in 4 day. I'm pushing hard to get it air worthy as it looks like we are still flying this weekend.

IMG_9353.jpg

I figure that I will need at least three coats of primer to get things as flat as I like so I won't bore you guys with that part of it. I'll be back in couple of days when the painting process begins. If by chance I get this air worthy in the next day, I might have a flight report in the next update.

Thanks for following along.
 
Sorry for the delay in posting but I managed to get the CUBIX in paint this weekend. Unfortunately I did not get a chance to fly it as I realized that painting it properly would require it to be done in pieces with the box fin separate from the rocket.

In my rush to try to get it done I neglected to take many pics so I'll describe the process.

Step 1 of painting was masking off about 1/4 inch of the smaller fins. The outside tips were masked off as this is where they would later be glued and have fillets applied when joined with the box fin. The entire main rocket body was then painted with two coats of Krylon Gloss White and left to cure in the blazing hot sun.

Step 2 was painting the inside of the box fin. Keep in mind that strips of tape were added to cover the areas inside the box fin where it will be attached to the smaller fins later. I carefully painted the inside of the box fin with Krylon Gloss Black and left it to cure.

Step 3 was to mask off and paint the upper and lower section of the main rocket body. Thanks to the 95+ degree temps and blazing hot direct sunlight I was able to mask and paint the second color the following day. At this point I wasn't to picky about where I placed the lower mask line as I knew I would be coming back to it after final assembly.

This brings us to our first pics. for the day. Below we can see the main rocket body has been attached to the box fin. For this I used 30 min. epoxy. I wanted something that would cure quickly and be thick enough to allow me to do the fillets in one step. Note the main body is painted as well as the inside of the box fin. I also did a little more filler work using Bondo Spot Putty to smooth out the fin can and sanded with 800 grit. Since this is going black, I'm not going to primer.

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Next I hand painted the fillet areas inside the box fin to get good coverage. There's no way I could get the spray paint down in there so hand painting is the way to go.

Next the outside of the fin can and lower portion of the rocket were painted with Gloss Black and left to cure over night.

After unmasking, this is where we are. I'm working from home today and the vinyl is being cut now. Hopefully I can find some time to get the vinyl on today and wrap this one up.

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It's great seing an old but flyable rocket restored and put back on the flight line!
 
It's great seeing an old but flyable rocket restored and put back on the flight line!

Agreed. One of my favorite parts of this hobby is finding old forgotten rockets and restoring them back to flying condition. Some aren't necessarily the prettiest things to look at as lets face it, some are just too far gone but I've found that almost all are able to get back to flying condition.
 
After a couple of clients irritated the crap out of me I decided it was time to take a break and work on my CUBIX.

I decided to go with the classis Rubik's Cube design but wanted to change up the font a little bit. I also struggled with the decision to go with either the solved cube or mixed cube design, I finally settled on the solved cube.

With the vinyl cut it was just a matter of lightly spraying the back of the vinyl with water and laying it down. All vinyl in Oracle 651 and cut on my Cricut. I selected the colors that matched as closely as I could to my actual Rubix's Cube.

Some additional stripes were added to cover the paint separation lines and add a little more color.

c1.jpgc2.jpgc4.jpg
c3.jpg
c6.jpg

One thing you didn't see in this build was the nose weight. Just prior to disassembly, I checked and recorded the CG. Knowing that I would be adding weight, I wanted to ensure that I got the CG back as close to stock or a little forward of the stock location.

After all vinyl was applied, I checked the CG and needed to add 1/4oz of weight to the nose. I this by removing the screw eye and drilling a 1/2 hole in the base of the cone. 1/4oz of BB's were added and a hard wood dowel rod was glued in place. The screw eye was attached and CG is now .75in forward of the stock location so I can fly larger motors if I like.

Lastly, when I do these builds I often get a least a couple of people that ask how much weight I added to the rocket with the baffles, longer shock cord, fillers etc. Below is the finished rocket, painted, shock cord, parachute etc. Total weight is 3.2oz minus the motor.

Cscale.jpg

Thanks for following along. I'm putting a fork in this one as it's Done......
 
After a couple of clients irritated the crap out of me I decided it was time to take a break and work on my CUBIX.

I decided to go with the classis Rubik's Cube design but wanted to change up the font a little bit. I also struggled with the decision to go with either the solved cube or mixed cube design, I finally settled on the solved cube.

With the vinyl cut it was just a matter of lightly spraying the back of the vinyl with water and laying it down. All vinyl in Oracle 651 and cut on my Cricut. I selected the colors that matched as closely as I could to my actual Rubix's Cube.

Some additional stripes were added to cover the paint separation lines and add a little more color.

View attachment 469815View attachment 469816View attachment 469818
View attachment 469817
View attachment 469819

One thing you didn't see in this build was the nose weight. Just prior to disassembly, I checked and recorded the CG. Knowing that I would be adding weight, I wanted to ensure that I got the CG back as close to stock or a little forward of the stock location.

After all vinyl was applied, I checked the CG and needed to add 1/4oz of weight to the nose. I this by removing the screw eye and drilling a 1/2 hole in the base of the cone. 1/4oz of BB's were added and a hard wood dowel rod was glued in place. The screw eye was attached and CG is now .75in forward of the stock location so I can fly larger motors if I like.

Lastly, when I do these builds I often get a least a couple of people that ask how much weight I added to the rocket with the baffles, longer shock cord, fillers etc. Below is the finished rocket, painted, shock cord, parachute etc. Total weight is 3.2oz minus the motor.

View attachment 469820

Thanks for following along. I'm putting a fork in this one as it's Done......
Looks great!

I am from the school that says it ain’t done til it survives its first flight.

please post a report. I have a theory that these square box fins fly with little or no role. I’d like to see if others are having the same experience.
 
Looks great!

I am from the school that says it ain’t done til it survives its first flight.

please post a report. I have a theory that these square box fins fly with little or no role. I’d like to see if others are having the same experience.

I'm hoping to get out again in the next couple of weeks and this one is in the line up to fly.
 
After a long few months, I've finally gotten a chance to get out and fly again. Had a chance to send the Cubix up this weekend and had some unexpected results. On the first flight I used a B6-4. Based on a rocket weight of 3.2oz I expected a low flight in the 300-350 range. What I got was 181ft as measured on the altimeter with a very slow take off. Flight was stable and had almost no spin. I'd call this flight a success except for the low altitude.

A bit later in the day I came back to the Cubix for a second flight. This time I chose a C6-5. The rocket left the pad but made a hard left turn about 30ft off the rod. It then flew almost horizontal for the remainder of the flight. With the altimeter on board it recorded 188ft.

The chute popped about 20ft off the ground and the rocket was saved. Winds were dead calm. The old grass test literally showed no wind at all, Nothing. Not sure why it flew fine on the B6 but was unhappy with the more powerful C6. I'm going to string test it but I don't think it's a CG/CP issue. I'll report back later.

In the meantime. Here is the pic on the pad ready to go up on the B6-4.

NWCUBIX3.jpg
 
Lovely rebuild.

What it needs is a Q-Jet C12-4 or -6. :)

Need to figure out the stability issue first. It was a long enough walk on the C6-5 :)

The motor had tons of punch so it wasn't an issue with speed off the rod and I can't believe the difference between the B6 and the C6 was enough to cause a GC issue.
 
Sometimes higher thrust motors can give rod-whip which looks like a 90 degree turn about 20 ft up. Was it on a 1/8", 3/16" or 1/4" rod? Looks thicker in the pic but at those scales it can be deceiving.
 
Sometimes higher thrust motors can give rod-whip which looks like a 90 degree turn about 20 ft up. Was it on a 1/8", 3/16" or 1/4" rod? Looks thicker in the pic but at those scales it can be deceiving.

1/8" rod. I have a video of it that I played back in slow motion (too large to post but will be on my Youtube when I put the video together). No rod whip. Rod was straight as an arrow. The rocket didn't make the turn until about 20ft off the rod. No obvious issue with the motor itself. Clay is good and no burn through anywhere.

I just went out and did the swing test and , Well I be darned.. With the B6 in the tail fully loaded with chute it string tests perfect. Nose into the wind and stable. Swapped to a C6-5 and can't get this thing to fly nose forward to save my life.

Added .25oz of nose weight and tried again. Success!!!! Never had one be that sensitive to CG. Should be heading back out next Friday. Will try it again with the added nose weight.
 
Need to figure out the stability issue first. It was a long enough walk on the C6-5 :)

The motor had tons of punch so it wasn't an issue with speed off the rod and I can't believe the difference between the B6 and the C6 was enough to cause a GC issue.
I'd be surprised as well, especially since you added some nose weight already. For what its worth, a Q-Jet C is just a touch lighter than an Estes one (0.80 oz vs. 0.87 oz for a C12-4 vs. C6-5 I just grabbed and weighed). The B6-4 I grabbed to weigh was 0.66 ounce.

I just went out and did the swing test and , Well I be darned.. With the B6 in the tail fully loaded with chute it string tests perfect. Nose into the wind and stable. Swapped to a C6-5 and can't get this thing to fly nose forward to save my life.

Added .25oz of nose weight and tried again. Success!!!! Never had one be that sensitive to CG. Should be heading back out next Friday. Will try it again with the added nose weight.

Well, what do you know!
 
One more update and we'll call this one done. After the unstable flight on the C6-5 I came back and added .25oz of nose weight. This past weekend I was able to get out and fly it again. While the rocket string tested fine it still was not perfectly stable. First flight on a C6-5 resulted in some pretty good wobble that took it down range but it did go up. Recovery was a bit of a walk but no harm done.

I have some small washers that I carry in my range box. I added an additional .25oz and sent it again on another C6-5. ( I was out there all alone so it was a good time to test). This time the flight was dead straight. No wobble, no spin, just dead arrow straight. For those that are keeping track, I've added .75oz of total weight to the nose but the results are a rocket that looks great and flies very well. Altimeter showed 488ft which kind of surprised me as the rocket weight is now 3.7oz without motor.

Couldn't ask for a better recovery. The last pic was taken from the pad. It literally landed about 10ft away.

Cubix flight 1.jpgCubix Flight 2.jpgCubix Flight 3.jpg
 
Nice you finally got it to fly stable.
First though to check a sim in open rocket but don't think that design will sim.
Swing test should work (its what I did in the '60's but sometimes it doesn't like you found.

Note on added weight and altitude:
There is an optimal weight to obtain highest altitude. Lightest does not reach highest altitude.
This effects the 'coast' stage of the flight, more weight (mass) has higher inertia therefore coasts further.
It is a trade off between velocity at burn-out verse coast inertia.
 
Nice you finally got it to fly stable.
First though to check a sim in open rocket but don't think that design will sim.
Swing test should work (its what I did in the '60's but sometimes it doesn't like you found.

Note on added weight and altitude:
There is an optimal weight to obtain highest altitude. Lightest does not reach highest altitude.
This effects the 'coast' stage of the flight, more weight (mass) has higher inertia therefore coasts further.
It is a trade off between velocity at burn-out verse coast inertia.


Agreed. I'm happy with the altitude for now but I'll go higher some day.

I have a fairly large stash of the old AT D21-4 and D21-7 motors. Would be fun to put it up on one of those. I'll need to weight the D21 and compare that to the weight of the C6. Might need more nose weight :(
 
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