Continuing on with the Viking project, the remaining three fins are marked out on a fresh sheet of 1/16" basswood....
...and carefully cut out and facets marked out.
I didn't even suffer a brain-fart and got the grain properly orientated!
More to come....
Hi, Blog Readers,
It's been a long time hasn't it?
Today, after a very long hiatus from anything model rocket related, I figured it might be time to power up the BlastFromThePast workshop and resume work on the multitude of unfinished models that have been languishing for months in the project cabinet.
The first is the Viking 4 scaler that I first started back in 2022 as part of a multi- model 'binge-build' that never quite took hold.
In my last post, I had cut out a Viking fin from 1/16" thick basswood and marked out the rather complicated facet pattern.
Working with an idea from fellow rocketeer Mike Goss, I pulled out my miniature thumb plane from the ol' woodworking tool chest.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with this tool, it is essentially a tiny version of a block plane. The entire thing is only 3 inches long and contains a fixed razor-like blade.
This handy little tool made short work of establishing the initial bevels at the outer edges of all the fin facets.
Since the tool and fin are both too small for me to hold steady for planing off the entire facets, I switched to sanding blocks.
After protecting the high-point lines with strips of masking tape, I was able to do a fairly good job of sanding the surfaces without messing things up.
Very time consuming and fiddly, but I'm satisfied with the results.
Now to make three more just like it....
Today, I had a little bit of free time, so what better way to spend it than working on a rocket project?
This time I broke out the box that contains the long-neglected Viking-4 scale project. Back toward the beginning of 2024, I had been working on sanding the airfoil into the four balsa fins.
Looking at them now, I am not at all satisfied with how the parts look. The Viking-4 fin airfoil facet pattern is really fairly complex, and very difficult to properly sand onto 1/16th balsa stock. A couple of the fin edges came out a bit too thin in some spots, while others had badly defined facet angles. I recall applying some CWF to some of the mis-sanded surfaces in an attempt to restore the original stock thickness and try again, but that didn't work too well, either.
So today, I decided to give basswood stock a try. After cutting out one fin to use as a test unit, I set to work with the sanding blocks.
If all goes well on the test fin, I'm rolling with basswood for the rest.
Here's a photo of the still-obstructed air-brush paint station.
The final band rehearsal is scheduled for September 7th, so I can finally take down the amps and speakers afterward and get to playing with the air-brush.
Cheers!
Thank all of you blog readers for checking in. You've likely noticed there hasn't been much in the way of new posting here lately.
3 reasons:
1 - Lots of life happening and things going on with family.
2 - I recently acquired a huge stash of used LEGO pieces - over 15,000 - that I have spent a good part of the past month cleaning, sanitizing, sorting and integrating into my existing collection. This entailed re-vamping my entire storage system I had in place to accommodate a whole new crap-ton of ABS !! I pretty much had to get this done because the 10 storage containers that the parts came in were inconveniently in the way and underfoot.
If any of you are interested, I write a parallel LEGO blog. Pretty good read! The link is on the right, here on my blog page under 'All My Other Blog Pages'. It's the "Tales From The Double Decker Couch LEGO Blog".
3. I've got a music band together and have been immersed in preparing song charts, a set list, practice, and rehearsing for a gig coming up in late September.
All this has left very little time for anything model rocketry related. I haven't built any new rockets the entire year, save for the two booster stages I posted about recently. I've only done one launch session that netted only four flights. The airbrush I bought last Spring hasn't even been used once. In fact, the paint station and paint booth I built is currently blocked from use by a large PA speaker and stand that is being used for band rehearsals in the basement workshop area.
Heck, I didn't even make the 70 mile jaunt down I-25 to attend even one day of NARAM-65 !!
Once I make it past the gig and some other family concerns, I'll have the time to, once again, flick on the basement lights and fire up the BlastFromThePast rocket operation again.
On a brighter note, the fields at Dove Valley Regional Park are finally open again, so as soon as a day of good wind and weather conditions shows up on the radar, I will initiate another Front Range rocket launch. I'm hoping that will happen within the next couple of weeks.
Stay tuned !
I certainly am....
I finally completed the first two build projects of 2024 - a pair of open gap booster stages for use with BT-5 and BT-20 upper stage rockets.
These vehicles feature an open interstage adapter to prevent the free escape of gas pressure from blowing the stages apart before sustainer ignition.
The design of these boosters is inspired by the various Aerobee sounding rockets flown in the past.
The short tube at the top of each interstage adapter will slip over the protruding upper stage motor casing as long as it is 1/4" in length.
The booster stages also contain a music wire motor retainer to prevent ejection of the booster casings.
The black paint on each of the models is of the high heat variety, used to paint BBQ grills, to protect the interstage structure from hot gases.
Here are some pics:
AGS-132
The booster stages in flight configuration:
An MPC Super Star clone atop the 13mm booster, and an Estes Viking mated with the 18mm version.
I greatly look forward to flying these tandems at the next Colorado Front Range launch session.
Cheers!
True to my word, I spent a good part of yesterday immersed in model rocket building and repair.
The first item on the agenda was to get the two open gap boosters I've been working on outside to shoot some high heat black paint to the tops of the airframes and interstage adapters.
While these were drying, I pulled out the Skeeter Eeter 3 to repair a broken fin. A while back, the model took a dive onto the cement floor of the BlastFromThePast shop while I was re-organizing the model storage cabinet.
Snapped a fin real good.
I've also dug out a few other unfinished rocket projects to resume work on, including the Artemis plastic conversion.
It seems that last Friday's launch was just the spark I needed to break out of those rocketry doldrums.
Cheers!
Nope, not my wedding anniversary, but my eighth anniversary of becoming a Born-Again-Rocketeer!
I merely allowed the May 16th event to slip by completely unnoticed and unobserved.
I attribute the oversight to the fact that the month of May was extraordinarily busy in the BlastFromThePast home, none of the activity being rocketry related.
So, to make it up, today I resolve to eschew all outdoor gardening/yard work, music practice, etc, and descend into the basement La-BOR-atory, pop open a Mountain Dew or two, and spend some quality time with the ol' build pile.
Maybe even fire up that brand new but long-neglected airbrush....
