Upscale Onyx

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Nathan

Joined
Apr 19, 2012
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I just finished scratch building an upscale LOC Onyx and am about ready to begin painting. It is 5.5" diameter, 47" tall, with 54mm motor mount. All of the fiberglass components came from Madcow except for the fins which were custom cut by Nat Kinsey at UpscaleCNC. I'll be flying it on 2 and 3 grain CTI motors. It has an av bay in the nose cone with a RRC3 altimeter, and will also have dual Chute Releases. The RRC3 will fire the apogee deployment charge, with motor ejection for backup. Then the two Chute Releases will both release the 4 foot chute at 600 ft, for redundancy.

It has 13 oz of BB's and epoxy in the tip of the nose. Stability is about 0.8 cal. That might not sound like much but it is fine for a short stubby rocket because that doesn't take base drag into account. For example a Minie-Magg (which is also 5.5" diameter) is about 0.1 cal stability without additional nose weight. But with a rocket like this it is important to use a motor that will get it off the rail with plenty of velocity. First flight will probably be with a 2 grain J430 which sims at 2600 ft.

I'll post more pics as I paint it, which will probably take about a month.

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Can't wait to watch your paint process again, especially when I'll be starting my own in a couple weeks. I've already learned a wealth of info from you and Vonmises, which I will see him this weekend. Although I haven't duplicated your level of paint finish, they have improved immensely. Now to work on the patience factor.
 
Nice! I'm working on something very similar in a 4" config.

I take it the avionics bay lids are at the top and bottom of the coupler?
 
Nice! I'm working on something very similar in a 4" config.

I take it the avionics bay lids are at the top and bottom of the coupler?

Av bay is in the nose. There is a centering ring in the shoulder of the nose cone. The av bay is built on a bulkhead that slides onto the 4 bolts on the CR and will be held on with 4 wing nuts. The sled will be attached to the 2 threaded rods. The 4 bolts are attached to the top of the CR with epoxy putty. The other 2 holes in the CR are make room for the small bolts on the back of the ejection canister and the terminal block on the bulkhead.

That centering ring in the shoulder of the nose cone has not been glued in yet because I don't want to permanently mount the switch until after painting is complete and once I glue in that CR it will be difficult to access the switch from the inside. I'm thinking about gluing that CR in higher up in the shoulder so that I can reach the back of the switch with my fingers, in case I ever need to replace the switch.

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Looks great! I too am impressed by the rocket storage. Those cantilevered rocket holders are nice.

Thanks!
Ha, I post a pic of my new rocket and what everybody really likes is my cheap Home Depot shelving. I should post a panoramic view of my rocket shop. The window looks down over the Rappahannock River.
 
Looks very nice.

One suggestion if you do any similar future builds is to mount your switch directly to your sled, line one of your static vent holes up with the switch location and you can turn it on & off through the static vent hole and it's always easily accessible if you need to get to it.

I to like the bird storage set up :)
 
Looks very nice.

One suggestion if you do any similar future builds is to mount your switch directly to your sled, line one of your static vent holes up with the switch location and you can turn it on & off through the static vent hole and it's always easily accessible if you need to get to it.

I to like the bird storage set up :)

That's how I built my very first dual deploy rocket. It didn't have a switch band on the av bay, instead I accessed the switch through a vent hole. It was such a pain getting everything aligned just right so that the switch was directly under the vent hole every time I flew the rocket that I would never do that again.
 
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That's how I built my very first dual deploy rocket. It didn't have a switch band on the av bay, instead I accessed the switch through a vent hole. It was such a pain getting everything aligned just right so that the switch was directly under the vent hole every time I flew the rocket that I would never do that again.

What I have done is use a locating mark on the centering ring and the coupler. Before you tighten down the allthread rotate the marks to align.The other trick is positioning the screw switch as close to the vent hole as possible. Crazy jim has a nice in ring band design for this.

Please do a panorama shot of the shop.
 
What are you going to paint it with?

I've got a few quarts of Duplicolor Paint Shop lacquer sitting around which I'm going to use. So it's going to be red, white, and black. Of course it also will get the usual treatment of several coats of clear lacquer, wet sanded and polished.

Here is the paint design that I have so far. Kind of similar to my old Minie-Magg . . .

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One suggestion if you do any similar future builds is to mount your switch directly to your sled, line one of your static vent holes up with the switch location and you can turn it on & off through the static vent hole and it's always easily accessible if you need to get to it.

Assuming you are able to make this work, I agree this is a favorable approach. I've also found that adding a 300+ lumen flashlight to your field tool bag helps in locating the switches on bright sunny days. Shine the light, click the switch, good to go. I'm taking this approach on my build as well. Its fortunate that I was able to line up the switch with the nose cone seam. :)

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Nose cone av bay work is finished. I glued the coupler high enough in the shoulder of the nose cone so that I can reach the switch from the inside in case it ever needs to be replaced. That also provides some extra space for recovery gear, which was going to be tight otherwise. I didn't put a fillet on the bottom side of that coupler because the av bay bulkhead needs to fit tight up against the coupler. But there is plenty of epoxy on the top side of the coupler.

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Next step will be the deployment charge test which I want to do before painting the color coats. Wouldn't want the paint job to get all scuffed up before I even fly it . . .
 
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Finished the deployment charge test. I used 2 grams of powder and it shot the nose cone about 10 feet which was about what I was looking for so 2 grams it is. After cleaning off the soot and dirt I sprayed the second coat of primer, then the next day sanded it with 400 grit. Today I sprayed three coats of white Duplicolor Paint Shop lacquer; one light coat and then two wet coats, about 10 minutes apart.

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Next step: Let it dry at least a day and then mask for spraying red . . .
 
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Nice!

Question for you on the Restoration Shop lacquer (I know you're using the Duplicolor on this one), are you using their thinner, or do you use generic thinner?
 
Nice!

Question for you on the Restoration Shop lacquer (I know you're using the Duplicolor on this one), are you using their thinner, or do you use generic thinner?

I use Restoration Shop thinner for thinning Restoration Shop lacquer and generic thinner for cleaning the spray gun.

I bought a gallon each of their medium thinner and slow thinner. The medium thinner is for temps 65 - 80°F and the slow thinner is for temps 75 - 95°F. It goes fast and I am already running low on the slow thinner. You mix the color lacquer 1:1 and the clear lacquer 2:1 (2 thinner:1 clear).

I only paint in the spring and fall because I paint in the garage and it's usually too humid in the summer and too cold in the winter. I don't expect to be spraying any Restoration Shop lacquer again until the spring. The only other spraying I plan to do this fall is to maybe repaint my Frenzy XL which is getting a bit scuffed up after 12 flights. It was painted with Duplicolor lacquer so if I repaint it I will use Duplicolor again.
 
I've been busy but am finally getting back to working on this rocket. The white coat had a little orange peel so I wet sanded it with 1000 grit sandpaper because it needs to be smooth before applying masking tape for the next coat.

The next color coat will be the red. For masking I first do the edges with 3M green precision masking tape, and then finish up with blue painters tape and plastic cut from from a trash bag.

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I've been busy but am finally getting back to working on this rocket. The white coat had a little orange peel so I wet sanded it with 1000 grit sandpaper because it needs to be smooth before applying masking tape for the next coat.

The next color coat will be the red. For masking I first do the edges with 3M green precision masking tape, and then finish up with blue painters tape and plastic cut from from a trash bag.

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Looks great so far!
 
After masking for spraying black. Again I used green precision tape for the edges and then finished with painters tape and plastic. But the blue painters tape doesn't stick to plastic trash bags very well so I had to add some normal masking tape. . .

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After spraying black. Always nice to remove the masking and not find any flaws. I painted the nose cone black also but I can't put the nose cone on yet because it still has masking tape on the shoulder. Don't worry about the texture in the black paint; it won't be visible after I sand and polish the clear coat.

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Next step: lightly polish out some tape marks (like the one you can see in the upper red stripe) and then spray clear coat . . .
 
After spraying 5 coats of clear lacquer . . .

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Next step: Wet sanding. Note that I removed all the masking tape to see how it looks with the nose cone on. But before wet sanding I will first mask the aluminum nose cone tip again because 1000 grit sandpaper will scratch up the aluminum.
 
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