The Path to Level 1: Acquisition, Build, Test, and Certification Attempt Thread

[Initiator001]

Probably will end up doing that at some point. I wouldn’t want the ends to weaken a ton before I get it ready to fly.

I don’t suppose you would have had a specific recommendation for a filling method (everyone seems to have one)? Or are you more of a “whatever works” kind of guy?

After Hobbypoxy 'Stuff' was discontinued I tried several other methods to fill body tube spirals. Friends told me about Elmers' CWF and that is what I have been using.

 

[smstachwick]

After Hobbypoxy 'Stuff' was discontinued I tried several other methods to fill body tube spirals. Friends told me about Elmers' CWF and that is what I have been using.

Maybe next build then. New bottle, more careful mixing, better sanding technique. I think I’d be set.

In the meantime I’ve primed up the tubes again and aside from a bit of touchup, they’re ready for sanding. The rattle in the rattle can is really loud so I might just use up the rest of it and call it a day on filler/primer until it comes time for finishing.

 

[T-Rex]

@smstachwick There are many paths to the same destination. You do you, just make sure you enjoy the journey.

 

[smstachwick]

@smstachwick There are many paths to the same destination. You do you, just make sure you enjoy the journey.

Wise words. This project has been challenging but not unenjoyable. I love the support I’ve been getting, it’s so much better than trying to figure it out myself.

 

[smstachwick]

I ran out of filler primer right as I started touch-up.

On a more positive note, I now know what’s inside a rattlecan. Maybe I should start collecting these…

 

[smstachwick]

That’s about as much filling as I feel like doing. The spiral is only visible from less than an arms’ length, unless you have shorter arms or better eyes than I do.

Nevertheless, I do plan to put on one (1) further coat of the stuff, not with filling in mind, but rather to serve as a base coat. Redundant? Maybe, but I’m going for it anyway.

I’ll be able to get back to it on Sunday at the earliest, that’s the soonest day without any rain.

 

[Zbench]

So you’re saying that despite Hans assurances that one coat will completely fill the spirals even after two coats they are still not completely filled? If the answer is yes that’s my experience as well. Looking forward to the addition of some fins!

 

[smstachwick]

So you’re saying that despite Hans assurances that one cost will completely fill the spirals even after two coats they are still not completely filled? If the answer is yes that’s my experience as well. Looking forward to the addition of some fins!

No need to go dunking on our friend Hans. Maybe he knows something we don’t.

I’m also looking forward to some additional build progress. Fins would be nice, so would a coupler so I can put the tubes together.

 

[Zbench]

No need to go dunking on our friend Hans. Maybe he knows something we don’t.

I’m also looking forward to some additional build progress. Fins would be nice, so would a coupler so I can put the tubes together.

If the rocket doesn’t need to come apart at the coupler, you might consider gluing it together, then sanding it one more time and spraying again to mask the seam. Tube joints are ugly when not filled.

 

[4regt4]

So you’re saying that despite Hans assurances that one coat will completely fill the spirals even after two coats they are still not completely filled? If the answer is yes that’s my experience as well. Looking forward to the addition of some fins!

Well......

The spray cans in the picture are Rustoleum.

You need Duplicolor Filler if you want to fill them in one very thick coat. There is a world of difference in the two.

Hans.

 

[smstachwick]

If the rocket doesn’t need to come apart at the coupler, you might consider gluing it together, then sanding it one more time and spraying again to mask the seam. Tube joints are ugly when not filled.

This one is designed to recover in two pieces and I intend to build it that way. I’ll definitely do some work on the joint though.

Well......

The spray cans in the picture are Rustoleum.

You need Duplicolor Filler if you want to fill them in one very thick coat. There is a world of difference in the two.

Hans.

I’ll look for that the next time I do a HQ build. I didn’t see any at The Home Depot when I did my shopping but maybe someplace will have it available at least for order.

 

[4regt4]

I’ll look for that the next time I do a HQ build. I didn’t see any at The Home Depot when I did my shopping but maybe someplace will have it available at least for order.

Actually, you have to hang out at auto parts stores, like Autozone. Or Carquest, or... They all have it. I get mine at NAPA.

The can says it will fill scratches, etc up to 1/8" deep, but that is quite optimistic. 1/16" is easy.

Hans.

 

[Buster]

Good Luck on your attempt. Remember that the whole purpose of Level 1 is to get to Level 2. KISS. Single Deploy. A flight about 1000ft, calm day so you won’t have to walk too far. Checklist and make sure you double check the “Killer Items”.

 

[smstachwick]

Good Luck on your attempt. Remember that the whole purpose of Level 1 is to get to Level 2. KISS. Single Deploy. A flight about 1000ft, calm day so you won’t have to walk too far. Checklist and make sure you double check the “Killer Items”.

Thanks.

Currently I’m planning to go a bit higher, I think I simmed out at 2200 or so, but I’ve got a couple big sites around here and I do plan to test-fly prior to certification.

The checklist is a wonderful idea.

I just finished the primer coat this week and the paint showed up like two days ago, I’ll post pictures soon. Just been caught up in some forum drama and IRL stuff

 

[smstachwick]

One thing I forgot about. The primer I used left some rough “specks”



So I went after them with a gentle rub of 320 and wiped the dust off before painting.

I went for about one half of each tube, beginning around the launch lug. I don’t know if you can see the color change, it’s very subtle but visible to me.



I will need MUCH more Tamiya Insignia White to complete this thing, but I still have much of my little 100mL can of the stuff.

 

[fyrwrxz]

Shane, Hoping for Rocstock in April. You testing at Holtville before? Funny, but I'm testing tiny birds for Fiesta. Don't laff, I forgot how hard it is to a) build a lite little balsa bird and b) do the calcs to stay under our ridiculous waiver. Adapted a couple of Cris' Apogee units to fit with some really old G80's I don't trust anymore. We need to do breakfast again sometime. Say hi to the gf or me.

 

[smstachwick]

Shane, Hoping for Rocstock in April.

Me too! Fingers crossed for dry playa.

You testing at Holtville before?

I don't think so. I'd be very lucky to finish this thing before ROCstock, and even then it's still small enough to fly at Fiesta Island. A G74W will push it to 940 or so, and an F67 will get it up confidently

Funny, but I'm testing tiny birds for Fiesta. Don't laff, I forgot how hard it is to a) build a lite little balsa bird and b) do the calcs to stay under our ridiculous waiver.

Are you seriously doing all that by hand? I never had an issue getting OpenRocket to work. But I agree, I'm sometimes surprised by how much work I end up putting into the little ones.

Adapted a couple of Cris' Apogee units to fit with some really old G80's I don't trust anymore.

Good plan. I saw a guy bounce a G-Force just southeast of the flight line when I was out there last. I saw Chris F having a little chat with him after.

I wish I could say that was the scariest thing I saw that day; an Alpha III gone ballistic buried itself in the sand about 6 ft away from where I was standing. When I saw it was a little guy there with his family I decided not to give them a hard time, just helped them figure out what happened.

We need to do breakfast again sometime. Say hi to the gf or me.

Absolutely! I'm still adjusting to full-time but I'd jump at the chance to put something together.

 

[smstachwick]

So, I haven’t posted on this project in a while. Instead most updates are going on my YouTube channel. But to keep things moving here, I’ve completed the Insignia White after ordering several more cans of the stuff, finished the black around the tail section, and started the light gray near the nose. I’d even call that close to finished. Maybe one more coat to be sure.



Note a little black overspray on the white that I had to correct. I used a LOT more tape on the forward section.

I got this photo for my dad, who is out-of-state visiting an old friend/former neighbor who got me into rocketry years ago, a guy by the name of Craig Bosworth. I was in Scouting with his boys and the older one has an internship at SpaceX now, which is super cool.

 

[OverTheTop]

Note a little black overspray on the white that I had to correct. I used a LOT more tape on the forward section.

If you tape a plastic bag over the section you don't want sprayed it saves a lot of tape.

 

[smstachwick]

If you tape a plastic bag over the section you don't want sprayed it saves a lot of tape.

Neat trick, I’ll have to try that on my next paint project.

 

[smstachwick]

A lot of progress over the last few days. The tape has come off, and I think it looks OK. A few scuff marks and smudges from not handling it carefully enough, but who’s going to see that at 30 ft or more? I’ve also got the coupler epoxied in with JB Weld.



When I put the nose on I briefly took to carrying it around the house and posing in front of the mirror with it. I feel powerful already! My girlfriend thinks I’m insane.

I also masked off and soaped up the fins as instructed. The order of instructions seems a bit wonky to me, I’d think that letting them be completely submerged for a while, letting them dry, and then masking off the tabs for painting would be preferable.



I did wipe them off after this, they are mostly dry now and the last bit of moisture is evaporating off them as I type.

Looking at the rest of the instruction though, more weirdness!



What exactly is the point of the “M” decal, the leading edge cuffs?



Are they a scale detail? If so, why stick them on first and paint over? Am I intended to put masking tape over the decals before I paint? Is it an artifact of an old revision that hasn’t been removed? Is it to prevent damage from bug strikes or something? I haven’t the foggiest.

 

[OverTheTop]

Just make sure you rinse the fins properly after washing them. If you just let them air dry whatever the soap dislodged stays on the fin when the water evaporates. You need to make sure the contaminants are carried away from the parts. That applies to soap residue also.

I see people here at work making the same mistake with flux remover on PCBs. They wet the flux, stir it around a bit and then let the solvent evaporate. They just moved the residue around. Need to finish with a strong brush and flush of clean solvent in that case.

 

[smstachwick]

Just make sure you rinse the fins properly after washing them. If you just let them air dry whatever the soap dislodged stays on the fin when the water evaporates. You need to make sure the contaminants are carried away from the parts. That applies to soap residue also.

I did wipe them off, thanks for the reminder. I may go after them a second time and put a good rinse in there

 

[Initiator001]

A lot of progress over the last few days. The tape has come off, and I think it looks OK. A few scuff marks and smudges from not handling it carefully enough, but who’s going to see that at 30 ft or more? I’ve also got the coupler epoxied in with JB Weld.

View attachment 580127

When I put the nose on I briefly took to carrying it around the house and posing in front of the mirror with it. I feel powerful already! My girlfriend thinks I’m insane.

I also masked off and soaped up the fins as instructed. The order of instructions seems a bit wonky to me, I’d think that letting them be completely submerged for a while, letting them dry, and then masking off the tabs for painting would be preferable.

View attachment 580128

I did wipe them off after this, they are mostly dry now and the last bit of moisture is evaporating off them as I type.

Looking at the rest of the instruction though, more weirdness!

View attachment 580129

What exactly is the point of the “M” decal, the leading edge cuffs?

View attachment 580130

Are they a scale detail? If so, why stick them on first and paint over? Am I intended to put masking tape over the decals before I paint? Is it an artifact of an old revision that hasn’t been removed? Is it to prevent damage from bug strikes or something? I haven’t the foggiest.

Astrobee-D S/N-001 & S/N-002 used magnesium fins with a leading edge cuff made of aluminum or steel (I forget) with the entire fin then receiving a thermal coating.

The leading edge decal duplicates this scale feature.

Note: The assembly instructions for the AeroTech Astrobee-D kit were the most involved/difficult/time-consuming I ever worked on.

 

[smstachwick]

I did in fact go for a second wash-rinse, removing the masking tape first. I wanted to make sure they got really clean, and the need for the tape to stay dry would have gotten in the way.



I let those air dry before going for the stickers. Man, these things are fiddly! They would never want to stick to the leading edge they’re supposed to be aligned on, but they would stick very stubbornly to the face of the fin with any stray finger movements while I was trying to make adjustments. The ever-present fear that the adhesive would become dirty and not sticky enough meant that I limited myself to “good enough” rather than “great”. Part of me wonders if they would have worked better as two separate decals on each side, forgoing the leading edge and just settling for the little lip in the finish they produce. I’m guessing molds would have had trouble maintaining the correct tolerance.

Mindy was kind enough to act as my table vice and volunteered to lend her steady hands to decal-ing the one with the bent leading tip (it had become damaged in storage/transit/handling). The rest were all my work.


It’s not the cleanest install job in the history of the world, but they’re still less wrinkled than when they were on the decal sheet, so I’m calling that good enough.

Maybe if one pops off in a hard landing I’ll attempt to acquire another set and practice a few different techniques.

Astrobee-D S/N-001 & S/N-002 used magnesium fins with a leading edge cuff made of aluminum or steel (I forget) with the entire fin then receiving a thermal coating.

The leading edge decal duplicates this scale feature.

Note: The assembly instructions for the AeroTech Astrobee-D kit were the most involved/difficult/time-consuming I ever worked on.

Thanks for the info, Bob. I’ve seen it missing on pictures of other models that I’ve looked at. I wonder how many of these are just difficult to see in photos vs. omitted for convenience.

 

[smstachwick]

Project update:

I started priming the nose. I didn’t put on a super thick layer, just enough to expose the imperfections. While duct tape works fine enough to prevent paint from getting on the shoulder, it didn’t stop it from getting all over my hand. Thankfully I had a spare 2.6-inch tube lying around that I had acquired from @fyrwrxz last year, it appears to be an unfinished scratch build with twin 24mm mounts. It served me well as a painting wand. Thanks Dave!



That was last week I think (the picture had been sitting in my pictures folder since then.). Tonight I took some 150 sandpaper to it and rubbed down the flashing from the mold. It’s kind of neat that there are streaks on both sides like this, it’s almost like it’s foreshadowing the antennae.





I’ll have to go out and get some of the aforementioned Duplicolor filler. That’s a pretty substantial groove and I’d like that filled better.

For the fins, I was stupid and I tried to do two sides of the first one simultaneously, with no good spot to put it down to dry. I had gotten away with it with the tubes because I simply stood them on end, but that doesn’t work with fins. I set it down on a file folder, and sure enough the paint wetted the paper and made a bit of a mess. I’m sure I can scrape it off, but for now I’v decided to simply get the color on the 7 remaining good sides.

I secured a painting box and currently I’m working on applying paint to the first two fins, one of which is the one I started with. I’m doing a lot of thin coats simply because I don’t want the stuff to run.

The color has so far ended up less of a light tan and more a pastel yellow, but I’m ultimately not that concerned. Every build of this thing that I’ve seen, in every scale, seems to have a different color and they hardly ever match the instruction booklet.



One genuine mistake I made is using the light gray intended for the nose cone on the forward end of the body tube. I had been staring at the line drawings too much and not referring enough to the box photo. Re-taping and painting again with a darker gray will be the most substantial error correction on the project but I don’t have any real concern beyond paint compatibility, which I can test easily enough.

 

[smstachwick]

Here’s one completed side of a fin.



Here’s the side that I had stupidly set on a file folder. A wet wipe and some scraping with my finger got the texture almost back to normal. A little more paint should fix it and make the color more solid





Here’s the third fin that I got started. I did a tiny bit of painting before realizing I had forgotten to mask that tab off. The thing got another coat of paint after I got that done and it’s drying now.

 

[SolarYellow]

There is discussion here somewhere of wrapping tape around the leading edges of the Estes PSII fins in some of the 2-inch kits to keep air from getting between the halves and blowing them apart. Maybe that’s your answer on the leading edge decals.

 

[smstachwick]

I got the Duplicolor (which involved a 1-hour drive north to get it from the closest place that had it in stock) and HOLY CRAP this stuff is amazing! Three coats, each laid on real thick about 10 minutes apart.

I’ll let that sit for a day and then break out the sandpaper.





It’s obviously not perfect but it’s better than it was. Maybe paintable, or maybe another round will improve it.

 

[smstachwick]

I’ve mostly been agonizing over little details that DO NOT MATTER, letting my perfectionism run amok, and pursuing other projects, but progress has been made!

You may chuckle at my claim that it’s “enormous” but I was surprised at the overall length when I put it together. There’s a lot of capability in this thing compared to the rest of my fleet, I’m excited to progress further.