It took a little bit longer than one day to complete the kit, net of a couple of improvements. If I had stuck to the instructions, it would have been finished in a couple of hours.
Once the fin-can is dry-fitted, you realize three things:
- Full half of the front length of the fin root is unsecured, and is hanging loose. Positioning it perfectly inline with the airframe will be a challenge.
- There is no way to access the fins and repair/replace them after the fin can is glued. The top centering ring locks them in place, and prevents extraction after initial assembly.
- You might be able to Dremel out the roots and re-fit replacements down the line, but it will be messy.
- The reason I care about this scenario is because I've flown plexiglass-finned rockets before, and those fins are anything but sturdy.
- Even after the fin-can was glued to the airframe, the front of the fins would easily move sideways 1/4".
I really didn't feel good about that amount of fin root instability, and decided to epoxy fin-fillet all of the fins.
I did not trust masking tape to not mar the clear fins, so used Tamiya masking tape on the fins. Blue masking tape on the body:
BTW, kit instructions calling for 5-minute epoxy are really
not helpful.
You really want to pre-glue all 4 fins at once, then glue the motor mount in place, then test fit everything onto the airframe and adjust the fins-to-body angles for each fin. There is absolutely no way to complete all of the above tasks before 5-min epoxy would harden, so I used 30-minute epoxy instead.
Then, I finished painting and assembling the functional payload fairing assembly.
I fabricated a round balsa-wood "bulkhead" to block the bottom of the lower fairing cone (no pics, but can take them if someone cares), papered & CA-ed it for strength, and epoxied it in place. Then drilled two holes and tied the shock cord to the bottom of the payload fairing bulkhead. The other end of the shock cord was 3-fold-glued to the inside of the airframe tube.
To securely open and close the payload fairing, I tapped two 4-40 holes for nylon screws through the shoulder of the top of the fairing / nose cone. This piece will now be removable. A pre-cut chunk of a pool noodle fits right in, and will keep the altimeter from bouncing inside the usable payload fairing:
These are the pics of the completed rocket from a side, and the top:
It looks decent from 3-feet away.
The second picture gives away pre-installed wrap's factory crookedness and uneven glue application below the surface.
Anywhere closer than 3-feet away, and you can spot a lot of cosmetic issues with the kit, all courtesy of lousy factory quality control.
However, she will fly, get dirty, pickup new nicks and bruises.
Final weight came came in at 229g / 8 oz, and that is inclusive of all the modifications, fin fillets, proper nylon chute (plastic one from the kit went into trash), Kevlar chute blanket, and chute swivel.
She sims to 400 ft on D12, 777 ft on E12, and 1542 ft on F39.
This one is done, and I'm ready to move onto the next kit.