The Forgotten Tale of Long Tall Sally

It's amazing what you find when you shuffle your rocket room around. I am in the process of moving most of my stuff from a front bedroom to my new workspace in the a/c cooled garage. The bedroom will become a music room, but I'll leave that for another post.

Anyway, I was moving the last of some rockets off of a shelf, when I spotted a rocket in the corner that I had completely forgotten about. It was my attempt at an F Superroc model...the Long Tall Sally.

The rocket is big. Really big. She stands well over twelve and a half feet tall. She also has a 29mm motor mount (I was planning on using a "baby F," but wanted the flexibility of using 24 or 29mm motors.) My "go to" contest fins were trapazoids, and the LTS has 'em.

The secret behind LTS is that she is two Estes Mean Machines put together. These are the later editions with the "vacuum cleaner hose" joints that allow you to break her into three parts, while making very strong connections. Here are some pictures...

The vacuum cleaner hose joints....Just slip the parts together and twist!

With great length comes great shoulder stability. The shoulder goes from the yellow glue to my fingers.

Here's the crazy part...Ok, a lot of it is the crazy part...

"Custom" Logo (there are two along the length of the rocket) brought to you by Sharpie markers.

And this is the reason she breaks into three parts (plus the recovery section separation point). Picture by my beautiful wife Laurie.

So, you might be asking yourself how did such a lightly built, horribly, stupidly long rocket do? The answer is...It didn't.

The contest was cancelled.

The rocket was broken into its individual parts and leaned behind a shelf in the corner, having never flown. Years passed. One...two.....three.....six.....etc.... Poor Sally was completely forgotten.

Maybe I'll fly her one day, now that I found her, but maybe not. The wind would have to be completely dead and everything would have to go perfectly... It might not be worth it. Still, if I did, it would be spectacular, no matter what!

Until next time, fly 'em fast and high!

This Goblin Build is a Real Monster!

STICKERSHOCK CAME THROUGH IN RECORD TIME! THIS IS THE UPDATED BLOG ENTRY!

The story thus far: I happened to notice, while building another rocket, that I had most of the stuff I needed to build an LOC 2.63 diameter Goblin upscale! All I would need to do is rip apart an old busted up rocket I got for pretty much nothing at a DARS auction and add some new 1/8 inch ply fins and there ya go!

When we left off, I had ripped the old rocket apart, salvaged the 29mm motor mount, cut the body tube to length, and made the four fins...

We now resume our story...

I decided to use a slightly different approach with this bird. I took inspiration from Scott Cook's huge Der Red Max, which can be taken apart for transport. Although the Goblin won't be able to be taken apart, I built the motor mount to slide into the rear of the body tube after being fully built.

Internal fillets done, waiting on the slots to be cut in the tube...

The rocket that I used for this build was green. As I sanded it to smooth out some spots, I found that it was lighter green under the dark green. The effect looked a whole lot like a pickle.

Ah, there we go! The fin can is now in place. The rear of the tube got a little extra epoxy to hold the areas between the fins down.

For external fillets (and launch lugs) I used wood glue. The real structural fillets are the internal ones (in the C-slot fin guides) so these could just look nice...

A few coats of yellow paint dressed her up nicely...I had the yellow left over from the project that's sitting behind her...

When a Goblin becomes a Mummy. Time for the gloss black!

The black covered like a dream. One coat was all it took...

And on the nose, too! 

A little positive motor retention never hurt anyone.

And all ready for decals!!!

I had to place an order to Stickershock for decals to replace the ancient waterslide set that shattered into a million pieces when it touched water. These came through VERY quickly and went on like a dream! Here are the end results!

I used the original Estes K-55 plans for my decal placement. They have the logos and "goblin" figures angled with the fins...but not exactly following the fin edges. I think I got close...

It's funny, but when I think of this bird, I think of bats all over it. In fact, the original only had four (and two of those were in the Goblin logo). Stickershock gives you tons to have fun with, and I was tempted, but I ended up only adding one extra...

Which would be this little guy. Not on the original. Nope. 

Interestingly enough (at least to me) there are two schools of thought on the placement of the "3" stickers. The original plans featured what I call "the reclining 3." The new Estes kit has "the standing 3." Obviously either way is right, but I went with the vintage vibe...

This is my bass case. I stick random stickers on it because...well, because...

And here we have two generations of Stickershock logos! For the record, my wife likes the new one best. (I do too.)

So after all of that, I finally have my upscale Goblin! I'm glad that I was able to take a crashed piece of junk and turn it into something I can be proud of. By the way, the total cost, even after the emergency decal order, was under twenty bucks! You can't beat that!

Until then, fly 'em fast and high!

The Goblin...An Interlude...

Well, the master plan was thus: build a BT-80 Estes Goblin upscale out of junk parts I had laying about and try to keep the costs down to an absolute minimum. Also, document the process in a two part blog that would finish up today. However, plans often change and a big part of being in this hobby is the ability to roll with the changes (cue REO Speedwagon).

In this case, the monkey that tossed in the wrench (why do monkeys have tools at all?) was the weather. You see, the rocket is completely built (and it looks...just...so cool) but Spring decided to take the weekend off and Winter offered to step in to cover it and *Presto!* no painting for Stu. Sigh...

So, what does a blogger do when plans fall through? You punt. You may offer helpful hints about the blog (Clicking on the pictures makes them bigger and sharper!), or give semi-interesting facts about the blog (We've done over 200 posts so far with an average readership of 250 folks!). But in my case, I wanted to do more. You deserve more! Ok, maybe not much more, but here we go...

I present to you...from way back in 1998ish...my very first clone...THE GOBLIN!!!

There she is, in all her Goblinish glory! Ok, she's a little banged up, but she's been flown a few times. And let's not forget "flown" means with a D12... The motor mount tells the tale of the fury of those flights!

Mmmmm...crispy!

Way back in the late '90s when I cloned her, you couldn't hook it over to the local Hobby Lobby and just buy one (for 40% off...don't forget the coupon!). I had to go to Jimz Rocket Plans, print off the instructions, fin patterns and decals, print my own decals on Testors decal paper (thank goodness they were all black since I didn't have a color printer at the time) and then look up how tall it was supposed to be in old catalogs! Whew! You whipper-snappers got it good! Now get off my yard!!!

Anyway, the point to all of this (such as it is) is that the Goblin and I go way back and my (soon to be painted) BT-80 LOC Goblin is just the latest step in that relationship. There's just something about that little yellow and black hot rod that I really like...and soon I'll have a bigger one!

Until next time, fly 'em fast and high!

Reborn A Goblin...Part One

Sometimes when I'm working on one project, another project will suddenly pop into my muddled brain and demand to be built. Such was the case when I was working on my Sirius Eradicator and I noticed this:

A little backstory is in order, I suppose... You see, years ago I was at a DARS auction and I picked up an LOC...something...for pretty much nothing. It was based on the LOC 2.63 inch tube and nose. It had a busted fin and had obviously been well loved and much flown. Still, it didn't really seem to be worth restoring, and so it sat in my rocket room...and sat...and sat...

Now I have started moving my rocket stuff into my (much larger) air conditioned garage. All of that moving has me looking at stuff again. In this case I happened to notice that the 2.63 LOC tube was a pretty much dead-on match to the Estes BT-80 (which is 2.6 inches). This reminded me that I happened to have a set of Gordon's BT-80 Goblin decals that I had never used... I, therefore, stopped building the Eradicator long enough to snap the picture I just shared with you...mainly to remind myself of my great idea!

Once the Eradicator was finished (and I rebuilt my Estes D-Region Tomahawk) it was time to start my LOC rebirth/kitbash. Here we go!

The "before" picture. A once proud missile sits mangled and forgotten...

First, the launch lug had to go. A Dremel cutoff tool made short work of it.

Next, the Dremel was used to sand the epoxy off. Now the tube could be cut to length.

After the rear was cut off of the tube, I ripped it apart to harvest the 29mm motor mount.  Note the 38mm mount also in the picture. I was tempted, but then regained my sanity...

The mount was equipped with four wooden C-channels for the fins to slide into! This isn't a standard LOC design and it's unclear if it was a modification or not. Either way, it didn't help with the busted fin, mainly because the fins were never actually glued into the slots. The mount was turned so that the C-rails and the fin slots didn't match up. Again, a mystery as to why...

I mocked the scaled up fins in cardboard and tested the look and fit.

Next came cutting them out of the 1/8 inch ply that I purchased from Hobby Lobby...with a 40% off coupon. Total project cost at this point...under four bucks.

Dry fitting the unfinished fins. 

Dry fitting the newly sanded fins. I used the trusty Dremel to cut them out and sand them.

...And the DAP wood filler goes on. 

That's as far as I've gotten this week. Next, I'll finish out the fins and go from there. So, more to come!

Until next time, fly 'em fast and high!

The Return of the Tomahawk

The year was....uh....a while back. The place was McGregor, Texas. The event was Sport Scale. The rocket was the Estes D Region Tomahawk...slightly modified.

The button was pushed and she screamed into the air for a beautiful E powered flight! ...until she arched over, blew her nose cone, and separated into two distinct pieces. Had she been designed to do that, the flight would have still been beautiful. Alas, she had not. The nose section floated under a bright neon green chute, while the rest of the model (still amazingly stable) took a much faster route to the ground.

The results could have been worse. The nose cone was found, and the impact of the body tube on the only stinking rock in a ten foot area just resulted in four lost fins and a slight body tube crimp. However, what had once been a four finned rocket now only had three laying about the impact zone.

Fast forward several years....

While moving rockets from the front bedroom to my new rocket area in the garage, I found the pieces of the once proud model. On a whim, I posted a question on the NAR Facebook site about getting a fin number four. It seems it is out of production.

However, some of the nicest people you will ever meet are rocket people. Case in point, Scott Pennington from Colorado who had a full set of Estes Tomahawk fins that he was willing to simply mail to me! He had tapered the trailing edges of them (and had done a fantastic job of it) so I would have to use all four of his or taper mine. I gladly accepted the offer! (By the way, that means I have a set of three non-tapered fins that I will mail to anyone that needs them. Pass it along!)

So, here are my pictures from bringing my Estes D-Region Tomahawk back to life!

The crimp. Booooooo! Bad crimp!

The reason for the "incident" is the shock cord on the left. The upgraded cord is on the right. Twice as thick should do it!

Athough Scott's fins came painted, they were scuffed. After cleaning the plastic from the old fin can away from the joints with my Dremel tool, I did a little touch up painting...

The crimp was only cosmetic, so a little wood filler and paint took care of it...

Crimp? What crimp?

The fins drying from one final coat...

For applying the fins, I decided to go with some pretty strong insurance. J-B Weld for plastic seemed to fit the bill.

The fins in their new home!

And there you go! 

By the way, I mentioned that the model was slightly modified. I decided a 29mm mount better fit the spirit of the prototype than the stock 24mm...

So there you go! Thanks to the kindness of a fellow modeler (and the fact that neither of us threw the stuff away) the D-Region Tomahawk will fly again!

Until next time, fly 'em fast and high!

Things Are Getting Sirius....

A couple of weeks ago, on a whim, I posted on the NAR Facebook page that I had decided to finally build my Sirius Eradicator that I won a couple of years back at the DARS Classic. Funny thing about putting things on Facebook like that...it kind of makes you have to follow through. So, since I was on Spring Break this week (I work in an elementary school), I decided to dive in. Here is my pictorial journey of building...The Eradicator!!!

The parts. They were all great quality and well made. If anything went wrong with this build, it would clearly be my fault...

I like to fill all my parts before building. A quick coat of DAP on the fins and rings, and we were on our way!

Ok, not so quick. After sanding everything once, I spot filled as needed and sanded again. Still beats the heck out of old school sanding sealer...

A cool feature of this kit is that it comes with a small piece of threaded tube that screws into the lower centering ring for a motor retainer. This was a nice touch.

The motor mount is fairly typical. I only used epoxy in a couple of places, but this was one of them.

Sirius has you cut your own fin slots. It's actually pretty easy, but I did make a run to Hobby Lobby for new (sharp) exacto blades.

Little tube goes into big tube, then add rings...Got it!

The fins going on makes any project start looking more like a rocket.

Big tube goes into bigger tube, add fiddly-bits and test fit rings. Bingo! I waited until I painted it to actually install the rear rings.

Speaking of painting, here we go! The whole rocket is gloss white at this point. By the way, a cheap music stand really makes a nice rocket stand. Just saying...

The nose and rear rings are gray. I painted them all at once by just sliding the rings onto the base of the nose.

A simple trick for marking a nose cone is to cut a circle in a piece of cardboard and use it as a template.

The instructions call for three inches of the tip of the cone to be black. I went four inches instead, because I liked the way it looks and I'm a rebel. Here it is all masked off.

And here the fins are masked, as well. The area between two of the fins is also painted black.

By the way, I used flat black. I just thought it looked cool.

...and the fin can...

And there she is with all the paint in place!

Then I permanently attatched the rings. I used a stick to apply internal fillets.

Sirius gives you a choice of launch lugs or rail buttons. After much thought I went with the lugs. Why? Mainly because DARS' rails are all on the "away pads." ...and the mid power pads have nice sturdy rods. 

Now came "decal time!" How many decals does this rocket have? Forty... it has forty...I counted.

But it was worth it!

Side two...

Side three...

Side four!

So there you have it! Sirius really did a great job with this kit. I have a G80 that I think might go nicely with it...

Until next time, fly 'em fast and high!