MPC Lunar Patrol, Part 8 - Glider Pylons

After a long hiatus, I’m finally back on track to realize completion of the Lunar Patrol.

The pylon/standoff pieces and dowel pins that attach the gliders to the booster pods are the next items on the list to be built.

                The original MPC kit called for the pylons to be made of a piece of balsa wood cut to the shape of the template supplied with the kit.  This piece is way too fragile and prone to breakage on each and every flight.  I experienced this issue with my old fleet Lunar Patrol, and had to engineer an alternate way to strengthen them. 

The pylons in this re-build will be made from 1/8” thick basswood with the grain running perpendicular to the nose cones for added strength.

Since I do not wish to purchase a whole sheet of 1/8” basswood to make these small parts, I’m going with laminated pieces, from a 1/16” sheet which I already have on hand.

The pylon template from the kit instructions is a bit oversized for this build because of the slight difference in tube and nose cone diameter between the original MPC tubes and the Estes BT-20 being used. 

In addition, I am reasonably sure that my custom turned nose cones are of a slightly different shape and length compared to the kit originals.  I essentially guessed at them based on kit photos and instruction sheet illustrations.  The template gets tossed aside….

Instead, the pylons will be re-designed and shaped to fit the current nose cones.

To start off, I marked out a sketch of the basic nose cone profile on the piece of stock to establish baseline dimensions.  This was done by carefully sighting down straight over the nose cone, and keeping the pen perfectly vertical.

 

Two rectangular pieces are cut out to the required nominal length and width of the pylons.

The pieces are laminate glued together with the profile-marked piece on top.   What's up with the ragged marking line?  This was a dufus mistake...I grabbed a fine tip sharpie to go over the line so I could see it better.  The ink immediately ran into all of the wood grain.  Oh, well, I have to roll with this.

Now it’s just a matter of carefully sanding the nose cone profile into the pylon piece. This is done with a sheet of 220 sandpaper wrapped around a dowel.  I must be very careful here so I don’t break the piece because of the grain direction.  Mounting the part in a vice will help greatly with this process.

 

One additional note:  I used a razor saw to cut off a lot of the excess wood inside the profile before starting the sanding operation. No sense in doing a lot of un-necessary work! 

 

Once the piece is sanded down close to final shape, I switch to finer sandpaper (440) to finish the exact profile.  Checking often with the nose cone helps here.

 Since there are likely slight differences between the two turned nose cones, the second pylon must be made and fitted in the same way.

Stay tuned for Part 9...