Level One- Success! ...and Failure...

As some of you may recall, last October I attempted to get my level one with my home-brew Star Trek Starter Kit upscale rocket. Actually, I tried twice...and crashed twice. The first I write off to weird igniter placement that resulted in a sputtering underpowered flight that made the ground come up way too fast. In the second attempt that day, I broke the "don't trust the delay on an old motor" rule and also broke the rocket into many pieces. I took those pieces home and immediately began to rebuild.

Flash forward a year....

When I got to the Gunter Tx field, the winds were high. So high that I had to get help closing the gate. The turnout at the launch was good, however, so I wasn't the only crazy person. The back of my car held five models; my stock Estes Photon Disruptor, my Goblin upscale, my Alpha III upscale, my Sirius Eradicator, and....my Star Trek upscale.

The first thing I did was to fly the Photon...just to test the air. She took a crazy turn off the rod and landed somewhere at the end of the car row. At first I couldn't find her, even though I knew she landed close, but with a little help from Dan Smith we found her on the other side of a huge puddle. The puddle had some kind of tank in the middle which blocked our view. It was the only thing within 100 yards that could have blocked our view. The Gunter field had thrown down the gauntlet.

I then located John Dyer (he wasn't lost in the field behind anything, I just hadn't seen him yet) and I started prepping the Star Trek. John has been a friend for more decades than either of us want to admit, and I really wanted him to sign off on that pesky level one thingy. He, being a nice guy and all, agreed to do so... However, no good deed goes unpunished and our adventures this day would seriously impact his ability to fly pretty much any of his own models (sorry, John! But thanks again!)

We soon had the Star Trek ready. She held an Aerotech H100 DMS motor and a lot of hope and prayers. As we placed her on the rail, the wind began to pick up....ominously.....

Sam Barone began the countdown. Interestingly enough, that wind that I was talking about increased with each count and when the motor sputtered to life it was somewhere between hurricane and end of the world levels (full disclosure, we were within NAR wind limits, but my perception might have been impacted by my terror). The rocket rose into the air majestically...like this...

Then the horror began...the wind decided to press against those four large fins and demonstrate what the term "weather cock" means. She leaned over and headed upfield...at about half of her predicted altitude. We all watched in helpless wonder as she headed toward the ground. The ejection charge fired about ten feet before impact...and it was over. Level one denied again.

When John and I reached the wreckage, it was actually not as bad as....well...last time. The nose cone was toast. The upper five inches of tube was crunched, and 75% of the fins had been knocked off (that's three, for you non-math types), but other than that she was fine.

Still, I really wanted that stupid Level One.

I remembered that I had that Sirius Eradicator in the car....Hmmmm. After some horse trading between myself, John, and Robert from buyrocketmotors.com (plug!) I had a 29mm Aerotech H135 in hand. Now, the Eradicator is strong, but it is very light. John "loaned" me some clay for the nose, and soon we were ready to go again! Victory or death!!! Ok, not really "death," but humiliation anyway.

Sam went through the countdown again and she SCREAMED off of the pad! As she instantly got very small in the sky, John said "Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all..." I just said, "Holy-moly!"

We watched as the green chute deployed and she drifted...waaaaaaay up in the sky.... We had other eyes on her as well, namely Jada Smith (Dan's wife) who told us to call her if we needed help with tracking the landing spot down.

John and I lept into my Mini just like Batman and Robin would have if they drove a Mini...and were in their 50's...and we were off for recovery!

After parking next to the fence, we met up with Chas Russell, who just so happened to be wandering about, having recovered his rocket, and the Three Amigos began really searching. John called Jada and she told us exactly what track to take. Still, we didn't see the rocket. We crossed the road (which was made easier after Chas discovered a gate in the fence) and continued to search.

Finally, I walked over a rise in the next field and about a hundred yards away, I spotted a green blob. As I walked closer, it turned into this...

Success!!!

My main take-away from all of this is that while it may not take a village to get your level one, friends are always good to have!

Also, here's a shout out to Gary Briggs who, 1. Held the October Classic contest where I won the Eradicator and 2. Made a heck of a stand-off for the deflector plate on the successful cert flight!

Until next time, fly 'em fast and high!

Maxi Honest John Rebuild- Construction Finale!

Well, it seems like this project has been dragging on FOREVER. That's probably because it has. If you remember our last post (way back in September, I think) we were waiting to slap on the "motor band" detail and then run off to the races with paint and decals. Now, over a month later....I finally got the motor band on. Let me 'splain.

You see, the problem was holes. Not just any holes, mind you, but with 3/16 inch holes. The last layer of the motor band has 24 of these little suckers, and, therefore, I needed a 3/16 inch hole punch. Can you guess what size punch does NOT exist in the DFW area?

No problem! That's what those interwebs are for, right? Well, my first purchase from eBay turned out actually being a 1/4 inch punch. Grrrrrrr! They were nice about it and refunded my money while letting me keep it (although I have no use for it). And so I ordered another one.

Now, mind you, this was a punch that I was going to use on one project to punch 24 little holes in a detail that most people don't even notice. Still, I was on a mission! I would not be defeated!

The next punch came in and it wascactually the right size!!! So today I buckled down and made the band! Here are some exciting pics!

Step one: draw the strips on heavy stock paper.

Step two: After measuring out the holes, use the handy dandy, extremely rare 3/16 hole punch to punch them out. Use the measurement marks to line up the punch.

Step three: Marvel at holes that cost you ten bucks and a month of your life to produce! Yay! (You may now toss hole punch in garbage...I didn't, but I kinda felt like it)

Step four: Glue strips on the exact center of the body tube. Construction is now complete.

And there you have it! Now it's time to paint! ...right when the temperature is falling and the humidity it skyrocketing. What can go wrong??? Still, by Grabthar's Hammer, I WILL get this bird finished!!!

Until next time, fly 'em fast and high!

Honest Check-In!

Well, my Estes Maxi Honest John rebuild/ upgrade must be the slowest project ever (we're on about twenty something years now), but I did make a little progress this weekend! You see, this weekend was rainy and dark...perfect building weather! So, I jumped in!

But before I get into what I got done, I have to give a HUGE shout out to Gregory Henderson and Chas Russell for their help! You see, I had some of the old parts to the HoJo, but some where lost and gone forever. Namely, the launch shoe fiddly bits. So, I put a call out on the NAR Facebook page, and Chas sent me actual pictures of the real parts (on the honest-to-gosh missile!) and Gregory snail-mailed me copies of the original instruction sheets, templates for the parts, and even instructions on how to make the "motor bands" (which I had completely forgotten about). Wow! Thanks again so much guys!

Now on to the build! The first thing I had to do was to replace the ballast on my shop light. No kidding. It was dead. Actually, I found that I could replace the whole light for fifteen bucks less than just replacing the ballast, so...

Brand new shop light!

Next, I dug into those fiddly bits! I had plenty of scrap balsa and basswood around to make them from, so I took Gregory's templates and got to work...

The all-important templates!

The parts are coming together!

Ok, a bit of explanation on this one- the shoulder on the Estes Maxi Honest John nose is short...only about one inch. That's not much stability for a honkin' big cone! Therefore, I used a bit of scrap BT-80 (slit so the diameter was less) and extended the shoulder about three inches. I used wood glue to stiffen the tube and to help the masking tape stick. The nose is much less wobbly now!

Not perfect...but not bad, either...

Epoxied on the model!

Dramatic angle!

So there you go! Next, I'll put on the launch lugs, make and install the engine band, paint, apply my Stickershock decals and BAM! we're done!

More on that soon!

Until next time, fly 'em fast and high!

Checking In With Something That Could Be Checked Out...

Well, life has gotten rather "nutsy coo-coo" lately, and STB has gotten the short end of the stick. However, I thought I'd do a quick check in with everybody by sharing something from my collection that I really like. It's my Fourth Edition Handbook of Model Rocketry from 1976!

Now, it's really not all that rare but it's fun anyway. My mom was librarian at Garland High School for quite a while and gave me this copy when they retired it. Sometimes I wonder how many kids checked it out and dreamed about rockets in the 70s. Let's take a look, shall we?

The cover, which featured contest flying. It was big back then. Really big. Now...not so much.

The title page shows that the first edition was published in 1965...It was updated very quickly to this 4th edition.

One of the coolest ideas ever was featured in the "payloads" section. I actually had a Camroc about the same time this book came out. I took exactly one picture with it (of DP&Ws Flying Boxcar) that I gave to the owner, Woody.

This is called "math." We used to use it instead of altimeters and sim programs. 

At the far right of this picture we have the massive F100! FSI knew how to do "cool."

Speaking of "cool," let's get downright cold! These rockets (originally from Vashon) were fantastic! And then the government said we couldn't have them any more....

So there you have it! There are a lot more neat things in there, but you'll have to find a copy and look for yourself. Until next time, fly 'em fast and high!

Honest Fins

Over 25 years ago I built an Estes Maxi Honest John. High power was beginning to really "take off" (pun intended), so I used my 29mm motor mount from an NCR Phantom 2600 (that met a less than glorious end) and uprated my HoJo. Unfortunately, I didn't "uprate" the most fragile part of the model...the vacuformed fins! The results were fairly predictable.

Now, over the years I have pondered about how to rebuild my injured model so that it can actually fly as intended. I have thought about solid carved bass wood (I'm not that good), thicker plastic (I never found what I was looking for), or built up fins using ply (I couldn't decide what thickness). Finally, this summer, I decided to go ahead and tackle the project. "Built up ply" won because it seemed to be the least crazy option. So I headed off to Hobby Town and plunked down some cash on a sheet of 1/16 inch ply. It was on.

I will now share exactly how I worked out these fins (mainly as I went along). To help with the descriptions, I have pictures of every step of the process! So hang on...here we go!

Fortunately, I had bits of the old thin plastic fins. These served as a template for the new fins. I used some card stock for the guide...

The traced fin...before being cut out.

...and after! The two sections were needed due to the fin's destinctive cross section.

Remember the 1/16 inch ply I was talking about? Here it is with the fins laid out. I was able to butt them up against each other and still use my Dremel cutting tool to cut them out because they are slightly oversized due to tracing them from the original.

16 pieces all ready to go! At this point they were fairly rough. I actually numbered each section so that each fin was "married." This meant I knew which parts went with each other so that slight differences could be accounted for.

The epoxy begins to fly! I put a 1/8 inch ply stick in between the two halves to get the cross section right...

...because I had an interesting idea on how to do the through the wall construction. First, I cut out the sections marked with a rectangle...

...then I cut out these interesting looking internal spars from 1/8 inch ply...

...thusly...

...and then epoxied them in like this. The spars not only hold the fins steady, but give them structural strength. 

The 1/8 inch sticks used to form the fin cross section while gluing them were therefore removed before the fins were glued to the model.

A little F&F to make things neater. At this point I could no longer read my 1,2,3,4 markings on the fins, so I lined them up in order. Each fin was specific to a position on the model.

A little epoxy on the spars and the fins are in place!

Next came the epoxy fillets. These are structural as well as for looks. The whole assembly is pretty darn strong...

When the fillets dried, I test fitted the body tube and nose cone. Not too bad, if I say so myself!

So there you go! The Maxi Honest John now has sturdy fins!

Now I need to complete the rest of the build. Don't worry, I'll share it right here!

Until next time, fly 'em fast and high!

The Return of the Zonker!

Years ago I took on the rather thankless task of converting a wrapping paper tube into a body tube. I say it was thankless because it took a whole lot of filling and sanding and filling and sanding and filling and....well, you get the idea. When it was done I married it to a plastic fin can that I happened to have, and a nose cone that happened to fit. After a bit of yellow and black paint and some homemade decals, the Screaming Yellow Zonker was born!

I flew her a few times over the years, but then came the fateful day when I stepped on her in my rocket room. You can read about it here:

http://shroudlines.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-death-of-zonker.html?m=1

 I figured that was it. I wasn't going to mess with that stupid tube any more!

However, my heart softened a bit this week, and I realized that it really wouldn't be too tough to fix her...so here we go!

Here is where I cut out the crimped section. I used that section to make a coupler and glue the (about two inches shorter) body tube back together. I then applied the DAP Plastic Wood...

Here is the part of the cut out section that I didn't use. The screw has nothing to do with anything. It just happened to be there...

As you can see, I now had the Screaming Yellow Zer....

So I masked off the part of the logo I wanted to keep and slapped on some more yellow paint. Interestingly enough, not all yellow paint is created equal and the new paint is a shade darker than the old paint. I think it's good enough, though...

Now I had the Screaming Yellow. Huh. Obviously, a new decal would be needed...

So I printed one up on my trusty printer. By the way, I always use Testors decal paper because I can get it at Hobby Lobby. I print out a sheet of paper with the logo on it, and then tape a piece of the decal paper over it and run it through again. That way I use less decal paper...

The tape can be used to secure it to a handy surface for clear coating.

And there she is! The slightly shorter Screaming Yellow Zonker!

So there you have it! All in all it took about thirty minutes total working time. I'm glad to have her flyable again!

Until next time, fly 'em fast and high!

The Return of the Viper!

The Estes Colonial Viper is a classic kit that inspired a classic upscale by Morerockets.com. I built the upscale a while back and shared it on this blog.

The Viper was a beautiful bird, and even won "Best in show" at the DARS classic that year (the prize was the Sirius Eradicator, which I also built and featured on this blog). Unfortunately, there is more to the story.

If you fly, you sometimes crash, and this was the fate of my Viper. On a hard landing, she received some fin damage, some laser cannon damage, and a whole lot of decal damage. 

Now, fixing fins (and even laser canons) is not too tough, but those decals...there was a problem. I was determined to fix her though, so I contacted Dan at Morerockets.com about replacement decals. As it turns out they were very reasonable and he shipped them out right away. When I opened them I was excited to find that he had even included a few extra! If I crash again, I'm covered! Thanks, Dan!

Therefore here are the pics from my Viper rebirth...

After sanding, I put her on my painting stand...

She painted up nicely. It took about four coats.

On my (very messy) work table. I used my original Estes Viper as a guide on where to place the decals.

The decals were very high quality and very easy to work with. A lot of waterslide decals tend to be very thin, but these were thicker and went on easily even if you have "fumble fingers!"

They also went on faster than I would have thought...

Before I knew it, I was finished! Here are both of my Vipers side by side. The big one will fly again...I might not fly the little one...

So, just like that, the Viper was back in my fleet! Hopefully I'll be able to fly her soon! 

Until next time, fly 'em fast and high!