The aft CR turned out to be a bigger "issue" then I thought it should be. Mostly because I wanted to put some thick epoxy inside and let that flow down to the CR before I put the fillet between the CR and BT.
Because of misplaced epoxy while doing the internal fillets, the Dremal got a pretty good workout cleaning up the BT, MMT and aft edges of the fins. Once everything was cleaned up and the CR fit the way it was supposed to, bottom face flush with the aft edge of the MMT, I was ready to mount the Aeropack. The reason the MMT is flush with the CR is because of the way the Aeropack is mounted. The instructions say to put some tape on the outer face of a motor tube to take up any slack and slide that into the MMT and the Aeropack over that. The tape takes up any slop in the fit and makes sure the Aeropack and MMT are aligned as close as possible.
I didn't have a 98mm Motor so I used a 4" fiberglass coupler tube. It worked just as well. With the CR in place, the taped coupler fit snug in the Aeropack and MMT, I marked the CR for drilling the mounting holes. I followed the Aeropack instructions and tapped the holes for 6-32. With the coupler tube back in the MMT and the Aeropack aligned to it, I put the screws in place. Once that was done, the aft CR with the mounted Aeropack was pulled back out and the coupler tube removed.
I did have to use the dremal to notch the oak block for the rail button to make sure one Aeropack mounting screw cleared the block.
I'm sure there were several ways I could have epoxied the aft CR in that would have worked just as well. What I did was to put the CR in place, used the coupler to align the Aeropack, mount the Aeropack onto the CR, remove the alignment coupler and then epoxy the CR in place.
The reason I did it this way was because I wanted to put epoxy inside the rocket and let it flow down onto the CR to form fillets on the inside. I was concerned that some of this could leak through between the CR and Aeropack and epoxy the coupler tube into the MMT. As it turned out, that is exactly what would have happened if I had left the coupler tube in place.
After putting thick epoxy inside the rocket and putting the CR in place, I stood it on end so it rested on the Aeropack. After a couple of hours I check it, epoxy was no longer flowing, but still soft. It had leaked through between the MMT and run down the insides of the Aeropack. A little denatured Alcohol and some elbow grease cleaned it up real nice.
This is after it was cleaned up. It's hard to see where the epoxy had run down the inside of the BT also, but it did.
With the Aeropack cleaned up, the last thing was to put a fillet between the CR and the BT. I use the US Composites 3:1 thick epoxy again, but this time I added West Systems 406 Colloidal Silica. I used 30cc of resin and 45cc of the silica. This made a thick mixture that was easy to spread, but didn't flow after it was put into place.
I drilled the upper BT and nosecone for shear pins also. I'm using four 4-40 nylon screws. I placed them directly below the screws holding the nose cone to the nose cone shoulder. I also put them about 2" from the bottom of the nose cone shoulder. You can sort of see the shadow of the shoulder in this pic.
I also intend to use two 4-40 screws as shear pins for the av-bay to booster connection, but I want to discuss how many to use with my TAP tomorrow. I intend to ground test everything tomorrow so I may even have videos!
Other than the booster shear pins and upper rail button location, I think this is about finished! Except for the paint.
Any suggestions for a paint scheme would be greatly appreciated.