A Brutal Day At The Launch Field Yesterday...

 Yesterday, December 2nd - another Front Range group launch at Dove Valley Park in Centennial -

Here's a pic of the pile of mishap victims I brought home.

75 percent of my flights went very wrong!  Yikes!

The Wasp glider didn't even make it as far as powered flight before it was damaged.

Some days are just better than others!

I'll have a full launch report posted here in a few days.

Stay Tuned......

Binge Build: A Plethora of Painted Projects, Day 2 !

 Yesterday was another good day for rocket painting, so a quick trip to the nearby Wally World netted a fresh can of gloss white paint.

The white base for the Interceptor, Big Bertha, and Nike-X models are now finished off.

While I was at it, I shot the red paint on the ESAM - 58 nose, and some metallic silver for the Crossfire ISX nose.

Good weather in today's forecast, as well.

Here is a group shot of all the binge-build models at their various stages of completion:

Cheers !

Binge Build: A Plethora of Painted Projects - Day 1 !!

 Monday, November 29th, turned out to be a perfect weather day for getting outside and shooting paint on some of the binge-build models.  Three of the seven assembled birds have been through the primer sanding stage, so these were today's targets.

The Interceptor, Nike-X, and Big Bertha models all got two applications of gloss white. I ran out of paint before the third and final coats could be applied, so this will have to wait until I can get more.

A couple coats of gloss black finished the Bertha nose and the Interceptor tail nozzle.

Metallic silver was used for the Interceptor antennae and the Crossfire ISX tail nozzle, and finally, some gloss orange now adorns the Interceptor wing pods.

I just may get these birds finished by EOY, after all!  

Stay tuned.....

Binge Build: A Primo Primer Painting Party !

 Today, the weather in Castle Rock, Colorado was absolutely perfect: temperatures in the mid-60s, lots of sunshine, and no wind.

In reality, I should have taken advantage of these conditions to be out at the flying field launching rockets, but instead I chose to haul all of my binge-build models up the long staircase from the basement la-BOR-atory.

Since I'm hoping to get these birds completed by the end of the year, it was deemed that such a great weather day should be best spent shooting primer coats.

Before I had them all done, I ran out of primer paint, thus requiring a trip to the nearby automotive parts store to pick up another can of Dupli-Color gray.

Here are all of the models set out to dry:

Tomorrow - more sanding....

Binge Build: A Pile of Plastic Parts.

 This post covers the collection of noses and other plastic pieces from the various kits.

At this point, I have also added the plastic parts from the Estes Interceptor to the build pile.

Most of these pieces require the usual mold seam mitigation, shoulder sizing, shock cord loop clean-up, and final sanding in preparation for painting.

At least the noses don't have to be sealed and sanded like the balsa versions of yore.

Following are pics of all the models in this build with nose cones, nozzles, and other plastic parts completed and dry fitted:

Next stop: final prep and primer paint!

Binge Build: Fin Filling Fun, Frolic, and Frivolity !

The binge-build models have now been processed through the big fill n' sand step.

OWWWF ! MY FINGERS HURT !!

I have even built up really thick callouses on my fingertips!

Oh...wait...that's from playing guitar...

Never mind!

But, anyway, that was a lot of fins to fill and sand.

Hey, Elon.....where is my Tesla-Bot ???

 

For this multi-rocket build I chose to "CWF" the fins after they were attached to the body tubes, rather than my usual MO of doing them separately.  The only exception to this were the little 'tab' fins on the Crossfire.  Compound fins are usually more difficult to fill and sand if assembled.

Also, I was able to forego most of this step on the Icarus booster stage fins in favor of papering them.  I figured that these fins could use a little bit more reinforcing strength due to all of the hard landings they will be subjected to. I did, however, glue on some reinforcing balsa gussets along the fin roots.  These parts received the full  fill and sand treatment.

All of these models were subject to no less than three cycles of this process, so I've been quite busy covering myself with CWF dust.

You might have noted that the above photo includes a 7th model.  This is an Estes Interceptor that had been completed up to this point since last Spring.  It has now been integrated into the current binge-build.

Moving on.....

Back In The Day, Part 47 - A Little Tidbit From An Old Estes Model Rocket News Issue

I happened to be spending some time last evening looking through some of my PDF files of old Estes Industries' Model Rocket News, when I ran across this long-forgotten article from the April/May 1974 issue: 

The Colorado Springs club mentioned in the article was the organization I belonged to back in the 'old fleet' days. 

'Skywatchers Rocket Club' was the name given to the ROMAR (Rocky Mountain Association of Rocketry, NAR Section 331) club during some years when we weren't chartered as an NAR section due to the lack of the required number of NAR members.

I recall participating several times in Estes' Build-Up program back in the 1970s in which clubs would build models for the company to take to trade shows and public promotional demonstration launches.

Of course, we were required to give the models our very best workmanship, since these were display versions.  Many times, the birds were intended only as static display models, so we weren't required to install motor mounts or recovery systems. 

Estes would compensate our efforts with merchandise certificates which were used by the club to purchase model kits for competition meet prizes.

'Em were the goodle days!