Back To The Workbench...!

 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.

  Much better!   Even though the wood is decidedly harder than balsa, I found I had greatly increased control over sanding some of the angled facets without taking too much material off at one time, while maintaining the proper fin shape. 

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!

No Posts Here For Awhile

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....