What did you do rocket wise today?

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sanded the body filler on those GD balsa nose cones for the Delta II restoration rocket. Never, Ever again will I touch a piece of balsa after this is done 🤬 :barf::barf::haironfire:
 
  • Soldered up two Eggtimer Apogees. Not gonna pay $16 for a 3D printed mount (really?). So I am iterating on my own sled with OpenSCAD. I am trying to keep in BT-50 in diameter. The idea is to use them in JL Chute Release duties so I can take Single Use motors with delays that don't match the rocket and empty out the BP (unless the delay is too long in which case it becomes the 'backup' charge).
  • Gave up on the clogged Rustoleum primer (about a 4 year old can). Bought a new can. Wow. It seems the years have changed something as its WAY thinner and more runny. Fortunately its primer and therefore I'll sand a lot off. I'll have to go a lot lighter in coats. And it takes a long time to dry. :( But a coat is on the AeroDactyl TS
  • Took a flis Nanite down to go as the next build, put it back and took down a US Rockets WeightLofter... put that back and took down a DynaStar Orion, put that back and took down a DynaStar Flamethrower, put that back and took down a Rocketarium Gadfly and a Apogee Gyro Chaser. I think I'll work on those.
  • Tried to figure out how to bevel the leading edge of hardwood fins when all I have is a disc/belt sander
 
Worked on the rules for Sod Blaster V's Diablo Loco contest, hopefully we will be posting them soon so everyone can get started on next years contest rockets.
 
Today is actually yesterday for me. A couple of days ago I finished my two stage experiment. Today about 1am I used the last can of Rusto Automotive primer on my mile high rocket. I have been weighing the rocket at each stage of the build looking at each items weight. If a smaller quick link works I'll go with that...ect. The rocket clean was about 558 grams after primer,[ I forgot to right it down], 578 grams, after sanding, 576 grams. And yes I sanded it about 19 hours after I painted it. Only clogged a little. I only used two 4"x 8" sheets. The rocket is smooth and shiny. To fill the grain and what not on the balsa nose cone I used GoodFila CWF. I love this stuff. I put another coat of it on the primed nose cone and sanded a bit later. I included a pictures below. Used it on the fins too. I was able to do one side of a fin and about 15 minutes later sand it. And no clogging. Repeated for the 4 fins. I airfoiled the fins and they came out close to uniform. I cut the fin slots with a Dremel and a reinforced cut of disk. Four slots in 2 minutes. After the nose cone was filled and sanded I used some CA to harden the nose cone tip. After I did this I went to Walmart to pick up a couple things. I looked in the paint section and there glowing among the cans was Automotive Primer. I took two cans. Score. Now I'm thinking about what next to build and what to take to OcktoberFest next weekend. The 10 day forecast looks good. Last year was very windy. This year looks like it will be good flying weather.


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Shot the final color on my 2.8x upscale of the Estes Bandit #2060. Next, I will contact Mark Hayes regarding the decals. I also **** the black on most of the LOC-1 Magnum and the red for its nosecone. Next step for this one will be to mask off the fin area for the red. My winter work has begun.
 
Went to Menards for other stuff. They're all out of 1/4" craft ply. Found the nice birch ply flooring underlayment and got a 4x5' sheet for $27 before the 11% rebate. Nice stuff, seems very similar to craft ply and should work nicely for what I would build.
 
  • Soldered up my last Eggtimer ION.
  • Created a little sled for said ION, then modded a little box I found on Thingiverse to hold the ION. Since they are nothing more than a WiFi enabled recording altimeter, I just wanted to add a little box around it (vented).
  • Mounted the two Eggtimer Apogees (which check out fine so far) to little 3D sleds with screw terminals for the deployment charge. I mean like old school, nuts epoxied on the bottom and top. The leads from the Apogee captured under the top nuts. And the leads for the charge to wrap around and secured by a screw through the top nut, sled, and then to the bottom nut. These I hope will be the nuts for any rocket with a payload section that I want to fly on motors where I don't have a good delay time. Like too short (dump the charge) or too long, the delay becomes a backup
  • Sanded the Aerodactyl TS and then applied another coat of primer. That'll be the last. Good enough for me. I am not a Type A person.
    • Think I am gonna do a white payload section with a black vinyl roll pattern. The booster will be black with chrome vinyl decals (otherwise black would be STUPID if I wanted to find it). Aft of the payload section white transitioning to red until the rear of the sustainer. The fins will, like the booster, have shiny decals that match. Nose cone? Blue metalic? Beats me. :questions: :questions: :questions: :questions:
 
Swapped out a bad altimeter in my college kid’s altimeter bay and upgraded it for redundancy by adding a Marsa 33 and a RRC3. Now, the kid has much better altimeters than me! Something is wrong with this situation. 🧐
 

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I finished up the rocket flying season with the TripoliWisconsin club at the Bong State Park, WI. My 1st flight was with a 25+ year old NCR Phantom 4000. This is a cardboard rocket kit, 48" long and 4" in Dia. It flew on an Aerotech G72DM SU to 770'. Good flight, easy recovery. My 2nd flight was with a LOC Badger (a stretch Mini-Magg ). It's 45" long and 5.53" in Dia. I flew it on a Cesaroni H152 Blue Streak to 1000'. Again it was a good flight and easy recovery. This is where LDRS will be held in 2023.
 
Bought a couple of kits because I'm not buying kits anymore (after tomorrow). A Semroc Texas Firely and a Fliskits Praetor and booster. Texas Firefly goes into my collection and the Praetor goes into the build pile. Or sold. Or something. 🤠

Hmm, 21 kits added to my collection this year so far. Hey, 14 of those are rocket gliders and boost gliders, so they don't really count...
 
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Schedule, weather and the absence of neighborhood yardwork/construction aligned - I clear coated this trio. The 2K will be fully cured in 24 hours and then I'll do the final polishing and buffing.

MDRM is a parts build I started last year. Diablo and T-Loc are stock SBR and LOC kits except for the decals. All are 4" airframes.

MDRM_clear2.jpgSBR Diablo_clear2.jpgtloc_clear2.jpg
 
I applied the first two coats of primer to the eight booster tubes and nose cones for the 40-year-old Delta 2 rocket that I'm restoring, and naturally the Ace Hardware primer for $6 a can, has about the same amount of solids as 1% milk:mad:
I also used spot and glazing putty on 10 or so places on the airframe as well as there are still small pinholes and dents in the air frame, even after two layers of lightweight filler were initially applied. It's hard to polish a turd.
 
Schedule, weather and the absence of neighborhood yardwork/construction aligned - I clear coated this trio. The 2K will be fully cured in 24 hours and then I'll do the final polishing and buffing.

MDRM is a parts build I started last year. Diablo and T-Loc are stock SBR and LOC kits except for the decals. All are 4" airframes.

View attachment 541025View attachment 541026View attachment 541027
Man, just when I’m really proud of one of my paint jobs…you go and post those pics!!

They look amazing 🤩
 
Yesterday. Killed the USB ports on one of my laptops. Plugged a USB stick into the port (to copy across a sim file for RockSim), but unfortunately there was a little piece of aluminium foil had got into the end of it. Laptop immediately rebooted. Not good me thinks. Zero power out two USB ports now. Remove bottom cover and a little looking reveals an integrated circuit with a little crater in the top, on the main motherboard. Luckily the crater left the part number intact and it was quickly found to be a USB power switching chip. At least it is a decent chip with legs so it should be easy to change. I just need to find one, and DigiKey are currently out of stock :( . The computer is usable without those two ports and I'll just add a hub temporarily.
 
Schedule, weather and the absence of neighborhood yardwork/construction aligned - I clear coated this trio. The 2K will be fully cured in 24 hours and then I'll do the final polishing and buffing.

MDRM is a parts build I started last year. Diablo and T-Loc are stock SBR and LOC kits except for the decals. All are 4" airframes.

View attachment 541025View attachment 541026View attachment 541027
can you describe your polishing/finishing process for us?
 
I flew with Kloudbusters this weekend. This is a short video of my MAC Performance 4" Bolt flying on a L1256 Super White Lightning. Sorry for the quality, this was shot with a handheld digital. The flight apogee was 10,946 feet. That is my best ever altitude.

Jim
 

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I flew with Kloudbusters this weekend. This is a short video of my MAC Performance 4" Bolt flying on a L1256 Super White Lightning. Sorry for the quality, this was shot with a handheld digital. The flight apogee was 10,946 feet. That is my best ever altitude.

Jim
rats, my pc wouldn't open that file.
 
I thought I was just going to build some motors for next weekend’s last launch of the season in Oregon but found I had a minor repair on my 5.5” Nike Smoke (had to add some new screws to connect the main chute compartment to the altimeter/drogue section), repaired a forward altimeter bulkplate support in my full scale HV Arcas then had to check the altimeter sled in my 3” minimum diameter Carbon Fiber rocket. Was able to build an M1419 before nightfall. I will build the M1315 and an M1101 tomorrow!
 
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