NewWay N-22 Night Storm - build thread

[afadeev]

I was shopping for a few supplies from eRockets, and stumbled on NewWay's rectangular Night Storm kit, and impulse-bought-it.
eRockets shipped promptly, as always.
It is my first NewWay (aka Square) kit, and I have to say that they are superbly well designed, packaged, and illustrated:

https://www.erockets.biz/newway-flying-model-rocket-kit-n-22-night-storm-nwy-48/

 

[afadeev]

Relative to a "typical" Estes kit, all the components are at least one (1) quality level "above" of what you might expect:

• Square airframe tube is thicker and free of winding spirals. It sands easily, you don't need to worry about squishing it while working on it. Two (2) quick layers of primer is all it took to get it into a near finished state.
• 3D printed rectangular nose cone is very nice, and required minimal sanding and 2 quick layers of primer to make it perfectly even.
• Balsa sheets where straight, and were cut from evenly weighted wood between two sheets, and within each sheet. High quality consistent balsa density is a rarity in Estes kits.
• All balsa and paper pieces were laser cut without burns, and fit perfectly.
• Extra build components and tools are included in the kit, including three (3) sanding pads, Q-tips, a sanding emory stick, and 3D printed 45-degree sanding tool. As are two (2) sets of canopies and two (2) sets of water decals, just in case. Plus a snap swivel for the chute.
• Water decals sheets and a vinyl sticker are included.

[CORRECTION] - there are four (4) sets of water-slide decals included: 3 for black-painted rocket (white outlines) + 1 for light color painted rocket (black outlines)

Basically, its the best packaged kit I had ever purchased and built, to date:

 

[afadeev]

I started the build on three parallel tracks:

1. Applied primer to the main body tube, and let it dry. It's wet and humid around NJ this week (90% humidity outside, 60% inside), so drying will take longer than the advertised 24 hours, and run a high risk of complications. I wanted get that cycle started early.
2. Assembled balsa pieces into wings, and papered them using regular printing paper (see pic below).
   • Wings come together from three indexed balsa pieces, with grains extending from airframe at 45-degree angle. It makes sense to assemble them from 3 pieces to add strength to the long balsa sheets by interjecting gluing joints within them.
   • I strongly prefer to paper all wood wings for both strength, and ease of finishing. Once the paper skin dries, 1-2 layers of primer is all it takes to make wings look perfect. And the edges are no longer susceptible to chipping and breaking while being transported.
3. Assembled the engine mount with uniquely weird yet refreshing square centering rings.

Once everything dries overnight, I will start assembly of major components tomorrow:
1). Wings will get epoxied to the airframe.
2). Vertical stabilizer winglets and launch lug will get either epoxied, or wood-glued. Not sure yet.
3). Engine mount will get epoxied inside the airframe.
4). Paper canopy will get wood-glued to the airframe.

 

[afadeev]

OK, primer is taking forever to dry in high humidity, but at least it is no longer tacky. While sandable, it clogs the sanding paper WAY too fast in this state, but it is what it is. Going forward, I think I will abandon my cheapo spray paints, and upgrade to Tamiya primer and paints. Tamiya paints are way more expensive, but at least they dry reliably in 5-10 minutes vs. 1-2 days per paint coat with RustOleum/Krylon.

Now that wings and the airframe are ready, it's time to put them together.
Per instructions, I need to sand the mating root edges of two wings to 45-degree angles so that they fit tightly together on top of the airframe. There is a beveling tool provided, but I worked by hand on a large sheet of 3M sanding paper to speed-up the process. Then sanded the attachment surface on the airframe with 120-grit paper, and mixed the epoxy. Positioning the wing so that the beveled edge sticks out just enough to mate with the other wing is a bit tricky, as is keeping it in place while you clamp the pieces together to dry. I had to re-measure and re-align things a few times to get it right.

6 minute epoxy dries way too fast in the summer, so I will have to use 15 minute epoxy, measured by weight.




Once the epoxy has cured on the first wing, I mixed the second batch and glued the other wing.
And while the second wing was drying, I glued the two vertical stabilizer fins with TBII, to avoid messing with epoxy unnecessarily.
Origami folded and TBII-glued paper canopy turned out way better than I had expected.



Next up - applying glue fillets everywhere (TBII mostly, epoxy along the area where two wings mate together), attaching the rectangular launch lug, and painting.
I will stick with the recommended black background paint scheme, assuming I can find a can of black Tamiya paint in the basement.

a

P.S.: A couple of lessons (re-)learned and reflections so far:

1. Working with the regular HD/WM (Rust-Oleum, Krylon, etc) paint is really slow and frustrating when humidity is above 50%. Like it is now in NJ.
2. Do NOT forget to CA-seal the edges of your balsa wings after you paper them. I hadn't worked with balsa for more than a year, and had totally forgotten this step. Now I have to deal with a few paper edges that are not sticking to balsa as well as they should. So I have to go back and re-glue them again, and again. Not fun, and totally avoidable.
3. TBII is great to work with, but still shrinks when drying. I now remember that I have a TiteBond Gap Filling formulation somewhere around the house. I should have used that for filleting.

 

[techrat]

Yes, Newway kits rock, I find them to be high quality and frankly, very funny.
If you're a NJ resident, join us at CENJARS where we fly first Sunday of every month.
This Sunday is still a GO for launch despite impending weather (check the website Sunday Am), and fly your rockets with a patriotic theme (as we celebrate July 4th).
Excitement is guaranteed!

 

[afadeev]

First three layers of Tamiya metallic black (TS-40) followed by two layers of Tamiya clear (TS-13).
I think I've used up 80+% of that little black paint spray can, alas, the entire paint job was finished in under 20 minutes.


Black paint is tricky, highlighting all the imperfections.
This is as good of a result as my skills and patience can deliver:



Decals are next.

 

[neil_w]

Where do you buy the Tamiya paint?

 

[afadeev]

Where do you buy the Tamiya paint?

Scale Hobbyist
https://www.scalehobbyist.com/manuf...u=0&pg=1&ppp=48&sb=stocknumber_a&so=d&man=tam
They have the best prices I can find, with a relatively full selection of colors.
They ship reasonably promptly out of Nashua, NH, and a package is delivered to NJ within 2-3 days. I placed my last order on 6/22, got order confirmation with a shipping label on 6/26, and got the box delivered on 6/28. You do pay between $8.95 - $9.95 in shipping via UPS on all orders. so it helps to place fewer large orders.

Most of the cans are on 20-30% off MSRP sale, all the time.
Occasionally, you can snag a few cans 50% off. But never exactly the colors you need.
If someone knows a better source, do share.

FYI - Tamiya are lacquer paints. They dry quickly, and you can layer just about any other paint on top of lacquer (not the case with acrylics or enamels). But they are more expensive, and stink to high heaven, so I can only use them outdoors. In other words, I can only use them spring-summer-fall.



HTH,
a

 

[afadeev]

OK, final step - apply decals and final two coats of matte clear coat (Tamiya TS-80).
There was a rough picture guide of where to put the decals, and then I improvised a bit on top.

Did I say how awesome Tamiya paint is? Each layer takes about 60 seconds to dry, and the whole model is ready to handle after 3-4 minutes outside (in the sun). The whole paint cycle is reduced from multiple days to 5-15 minutes, in total. There is a material price premium on Tamiya paints, but if you value your time and don't want to go pro with air brushing, Tamiya spray cans are the best option on the market, IMHO.

I followed the instructions that read "decals stick better to the gloss paint, but he final look is better with a matte finish."
Matte clearcoat does hide finishing/paint imperfections a whole lot better than gloss clear, you be the judge:



More high rest pics of the final product below.
She is done, will fly some time later this fall.

If you're a NJ resident, join us at CENJARS where we fly first Sunday of every month.
This Sunday is still a GO for launch despite impending weather (check the website Sunday Am), and fly your rockets with a patriotic theme (as we celebrate July 4th).
Excitement is guaranteed!

Thanks, I used to fly with CENJARS, on occasion, pre-Covid.
My weekend around the 4th is a no-go for flying, and August also looks over-committed. Will try to come out to play some time in the fall, though.