Steampunk Protostar, Part 36 - Preparing To Paint

 The Protostar is now fully ready for the base color paint coats.   Obviously, since there is so much fine detail on the model, I am bypassing any primer steps and going straight to the finish coats.   A little prep work is required before this happens:

First, some CWF is applied to some of the rivet panel seams.  Some of them have gaps between the panels that might hinder the placement of some more future detail elements.  Once the CWF is dry, it gets sanded level.  This has to be done very carefully with a thin sanding stick so as not to disturb any of the rivets.

Finally, the locations where the launch lugs and other details will be glued on get masked to keep paint off of those areas.  

Now, I just need to wait for a suitable day to paint outdoors...

Steampunk ProtoStar, Part 35 - Detailing the Tail-Piece

 In this step of the build, the plastic tail-piece will get detail embellishments.  These are in the form of 'riveted' seam strips.

The strips are rendered in pretty much the same manner as the riveted panels on the main body tube - adhesive backed label paper punched with rivet detail, then applied into position on the tail shroud. The primary difference here is the size of the rivets.  These thin sections are punched with the tip of a ball point pen to make larger rivet heads.

The first strip goes around the very end of the tail. Standard paper shroud layout techniques were used here to obtain the proper curvature.

All of the paper strips used in this detailing step are cut to a width of four millimeters.  Rivets are spaced roughly 3mm apart, centered on the strips.

Marks are made at the wide end of the shroud to mark placement of  vertical rivet strips.  Note that the first strip will cover the plastic seam of the tail shroud.  This is one of seven that are required. 

Here is a photo of the rivet punching technique:

This is a photo of one of the completed strips:

Now, all of the vertical rivet strips are cut, punched and attached to the shroud. Note the circular details attached between some of the rivet strips.  These are sort of an afterthought, easily made by using a standard paper punch on the label sheet.

  

The completed tail assembly is now ready for shoulder masking and painting.

Steampunk Protostar, Part 34 - Attaching The Fin Pods

The next step of the Protostar actually refers back to use of the kit instructions.

What?     Instructions?    NO WAY !!

This portion of the build calls for attaching the pod assemblies to the fins.  Per directions, the pods are marked at 1-1/4" from the rear of the plastic pod piece.  These marks are to be aligned with the trailing edge of the fins.

I found this step to be the trickiest part of the build so far.  The pods are initially attached using CA glue.  It took some very creative use of  tape hold downs and careful balancing of the model to keep each pod in position and properly aligned until the glue could set. Only one pod could be done at a time.  

After the CA set, a small batch of epoxy was mixed and fin/pod fillets applied.   I learned the hard way to do each pod separately in this manner.  Before that, I was attempting to CA tack on all pods one after the next.  I ended up somehow bumping the previously attached pods and knocking them off!. It was like circus plate spinning!

Anyway, I finally managed to get all the pods glued on and securely filleted.

Here is the Protostar finally standing on its own supported by the pods...

Steampunk Protostar, Part 33 - Rivet Panels Finished

Hooray! The Steampunk protostar build series has finally returned.  Many of these posts have been completed for a long time, but have sat idle in 'draft' status up until now.

Today I have begun finishing up the final detail steps on the model, so things should all meet up within the next few weeks.

 The most time consuming part of this build is finally complete.  A total of 32 individual adhesive backed label stock panels, all with rows of hand-punched 'rivets', make up the ship's main body surface.  

Rivet spacing is 1/10" apart, and there are 16 rows of them running the full length of the model's 16" body tube.

I haven't counted them, but that's a ton of rivets!

The photo shows that there are some gaps between the ends of some of the applied panels.

These will be covered up by some wider riveted bands around the tube at each panel section that will be applied in a future step.

Ready For Rocketry!

Following the rush and bustle of the Christmas and New Year holidays, taking down and putting away the lights, and nearly completing the rocket binge-built, I virtually took off the entire month of January to rest, re-coop, and catch my breath.  I virtually did nothing rocketry related, save ordering the '22 Estes catalog and checking the rocketry forums once in awhile.

Now, fully refreshed and motivated, I'm ready to dive right back in.

Two of the binge-build rockets are still awaiting final paint coats.  The weather has been too crappy lately to do that, but I'm hoping things will change in the next few weeks.

I'm also ready to finish up the Steampunk Protostar project and resume putting up the remaining build posts (Finally!)

After that, I will be free to start work on a couple of scale birds in the queue.

Stay tuned...

The 2022 Estes Catalog

 I just received my new copy in the mail today.

Perusing through the pages, I was fairly delighted with the new model offerings:

A cool new Signature Series model designed by Bill Simon.

The return of the Orbital Transport (Yay!).  That one should never have gone away in the first place.

The Vesta Intruder in the Space Corps series.

The Universal Astrocam - an HD video/audio cam designed to fit 'most Estes rockets'.

And finally, the Blue Origin  New Shepard.

As for the scale and Pro series catalog sections, nothing has really changed there.  Pretty much the same thing with the lesser skill level series of models.

The biggest surprise of all, at least for me, is found in the motor section.

The A3-2T and A3-6T motors are back !!!  

Break out the party hats and noise-makers !!

Ever since I re-joined the hobby I have lamented the lack of these two motor types.  But they're really, truly back!

Here's to building some A-class boost/gliders and mini-motor multi-stagers... 

Another excellent change to the catalog is all about the photographs of the models.  Most are now shown in profile orientation which gives a better idea of proportion and appearance than the 'skewed' photos of near past issues.

General Kudos to Estes on the 2022 catalog! 

But then, of course, there are the price increases....(sigh)....

A Look Back At 2021

 Another year has come and gone...

Every January, I like to take a retrospective look at the past year here on the BlastFromTheBast Blog.

Even though 2021 still found us in the throes of a pandemic, I managed to get quite a bit of model rocketry done.

Here are the highlights:

8 new model rockets built.  

Five of these were part of the year-end multi-rocket build frenzy that is still in process.  I didn't get the remaining two completed due to the onset of colder weather and lots of windy conditions which precluded further painting operations.  These models will have to be part of the 2022 fleet addition roster.

54 Model Rocket Flights

These were spread out over 16 launch sessions:

    Five group launch sessions at Dove Valley Park in Centennial, Colorado.

    One launch session at Founders Park in Castle Rock.

    Ten launch sessions at Douglas County High School, also in Castle Rock.

Out of the total number of flights, one model was lost, and one was damaged irreparably.

One motor CATO was suffered.

Other Highlights:

One fleet model was retired after being launched on its 50th flight. This was my first ever model rocket, built in 1973.

I flew my first BAR-era D motors.  Up until this time, I had been apprehensive of going beyond Cs due to the relatively small fields I frequent. 

Several successful flight missions were flown involving altimeter and video camera payloads.

Finally, substantial progress was made on that old Steampunk Protostar build.  Sorry, no pics yet....

Our small group of rocketeers that meet at Dove Valley Park has expanded to nine individuals, including myself.

Here is this year's family photo of the flight-ready fleet for 2022:

Plus three more still residing in the 'repair hangar':

The fleet now stands at 30 models.

I would like to extend my sincere thanks to all of you who have, thus far, followed this obscure little corner of the wonderful worldwide web!  More to come in 2022!

Cheers!