That looks... like a reasonable hypothesis.I have come to the conclusion the reason my rockets are so heavy is...
I am Lakeroadster and I'm a recovering glue-aholic...
I feel like this was a missed opportunity to say "glue diligence".Thanks for your due diligence Neil.
Does the present tense "have no way to hold..." imply that you still have painting to do? Or have you finished them with the brush work?I have no way to hold onto these small pieces for spray painting. Even leaving a half-inch extra on one end would have given me something to grab.
Pieces for the warp cage, painted with two coats of Tamiya gloss black. My brushwork just sucks, but I think it'll be OK for these pieces.
Does the present tense "have no way to hold..." imply that you still have painting to do? Or have you finished them with the brush work?
If you still need to spray, try this: shove the smallest nail you can find, or even just a piece of thin wire in on an end, leaving a little sticking out. Use that to hang the piece by a string or wire and spray. Or even attach the string with a tiny dab of chewing gum. (OK, Fun-Tak or equivalent.) Point is, don't try to "hold" the pieces, but rather hang them by an end.
Almost anything would work for the five that do not support the launch lug. I consider a zillion things and settled on square dowels because... well I don't actually remember anymore. Round would have worked (again, for 5 out of the 6).Thinking outside the square box, seems like a cage should have bars, rather than plates.
Would dowels or wooden skewers work?
Be careful. That sort of reckless spending can catch up with you, y'know.I decided to blow $0.75 on a new piece of bass square dowel...
It's not beyond me, and I'm here to tell you it would be a giant PITA. And when it's finished you'd still have to use the resulting equation to construct the decal. Your way is better.The math to do this analytically is beyond me, so I had to do some "real world" testing.
No matter how much time I spend here I still keep discovering Estes kits that I was previously unaware of, in this case the Starliner. Very nice, I am always impressed by your cardstock models. Do you have a picture of your whole fleet?I had similar challenges in making these cardstock models with the window decals on the nose cones, reproductions of the Estes Starliner and Star Seeker (from the mini Tri Pak) I usually end up making a couple of iterations by trial and error to get the seams to line up right.
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I'm starting to get an idea about what I could do analytically, in conjunction with the transition shroud. I would not generate the entire decal in code, but I could create some alignment marks and use them as guides for my drawing. I just might still try that, to provide final tweaking to my image. Will see if I have time before I print the decals (of course I *do* have time, since it'll be a while yet before we get to decals.)It's not beyond me, and I'm here to tell you it would be a giant PITA. And when it's finished you'd still have to use the resulting equation to construct the decal. Your way is better.
Question: Does papering with glue add enough strength to forget about grain dieection? I know it adds strength to help with grain ossues, but is it enough to just not even think about them?
Don't know. I would guess that in marginal situations like mine, it might be enough to avoid worry. Whether you can take it all the way and completely ignore grain.... well, I await someone's tests before I would go there.Question: Does papering with glue add enough strength to forget about grain dieection? I know it adds strength to help with grain issues, but is it enough to just not even think about them?
No. I speak from experience.Question: Does papering with glue add enough strength to forget about grain dieection? I know it adds strength to help with grain issues, but is it enough to just not even think about them?
no, glued paper does NOT make up for wrong grain direction. This is why I drone on and on about marking the grain direction on your paper to make sure you are keeping track of it.I'm curious as well. I keep thinking about doing some testing with plywood and papered balsa fins, but haven't yet taken the initiative to do so.
I wonder how well this would work as a general-purpose fin material. Could make a big batch of it, and then no more worries about multi-piece fins, or orientation of fins on the sheet, or anything.If you have a structure that requires material strength in two different axes (example is a rotor stop on a helicopter rocket, or a fin that has multiple curves or corners that like to break off) and you want to keep it relatively light weight, you can create a two ply balsa, identical shaped parts with balsa grain in orthogonal directions (90 degrees opposed.) I usually use 1/16" pieces for a final 1/8" product.
I would think that the opposing grain direction combined with the adhesive would make balsa plywood stronger. Just a feeling, no scientific data to support this. And the idea of cutting something without paying attention to grain layout is appealing.I would tend to think it wouldn't be as strong in all directions as a single piece of balsa against the grain, but maybe good enough for typical LPR?
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