Steampunk Protostar #15 Mounting The Stock For Turning

Whenever I turn a nose or tail section for a model rocket, the stock usually get mounted to the lathe's face plate attachment.  Spindle turning between centers doesn't work on these parts because one end of the blank needs to be clear for shaping and finishing a tip.

The first step in mounting turning stock to the face plate is to construct a mounting plate.  This consists of a piece of wood that can be screwed to the metal face plate.  For most LPR nose cones I use a piece of 1x4 dimensional pine cut to 3-1/2" square.

Again, turning to my arsenal of hand tools, I use a backsaw and a bench hook to cut the board.

Drawing lines diagonally across the board establishes the center point.  This is done on both sides of the board.

The board is then lined up with the mounting holes on the lathe face plate.  The reference lines drawn on the mounting board should appear evenly aligned in the face plate when viewing through the mounting holes. If done properly, the board should end up well centered on the plate. 






A scratch awl is used to mark the locations of the holes on the mounting board.
(Geez, who else uses awls these days?)



Using the awl holes as guides, I drill out pilot holes for the screws.

 Vintage 'eggbeater' hand drill this time.










The board can now be screwed to the face plate, using #8 x 3/4 hex head sheet metal screws.





Next, some white glue (or yellow wood glue) is applied liberally to the end of the balsa stock.











And the stock is carefully placed into position onto the mounting board.  If the corners of the square stock line up precisely with the diagonals lines drawn on the mounting board, everything should be centered and aligned.

A weight is placed on top of the stock to keep things in place while the glue dries.  In this instance, I'm using a baby food jar full of nickels.





Next, it's off to the lathe to start turning....

Steampunk Protostar #14 - Preparing The Pod Stock

Now that the design of the pod end is established, it's time to grab a piece of balsa stock and mark it for cutting out the turning blank.

Hobby Lobby carries a good selection of balsa blocks, including a 3" x 3" x 12" one that is ideal for making many noses and other parts.

My intention with this part of the project is to make all three pod parts one at a time in series from the same piece of balsa stock. 

Since the pieces are intended to match a plastic cone that is BT-50 size, I will mark out a block that is 1-1/4" square. This gives me enough edge margin to turn the blank to a cylinder that is close to finished size.

Once the block is marked on all sides and ends, I mount it in the wood vice and begin carefully making the cuts with a dovetail saw.  The initial cuts are made at an angle at all four corners of the piece, carefully following the marked lines.

At this point, you might be asking, "Hey, BlastFromThePast, why are you cutting the stock this way?  Wouldn't a power saw work better?"  Probably faster, yes.  I do have a bandsaw upstairs in the garage on which I could very well accomplish this operation, but, being a hand tool woodworker, I simply prefer using hand saws.

Next the stock gets placed on a bench hook (another archaic 'Neanderthal' fixture) and the final through-cut is finished.  Note that the photo  shows the cut seemingly going off the line.  It was 4 a.m. when I marked out the piece, and one of the ends was accidently measured out a couple of millimeters off.  I noticed it in time and drew a new corrected cut line.

Here is the finished piece of stock, ready to be mounted on the turning face plate of the lathe.  The two pieces at the right are the leftover cutoffs to be used on a future project.

Steampunk Protostar #13 - Designing The Pod Ends

In the spirit of adhering to the KISS principle (Keep It Simple, Stupid), I have opted to make the rear pod pieces in an easy-to-turn hemispherical shape with a short glue base.

The initial step of this process is, of course, ascertaining the necessary dimensions for the parts by measuring the base of one of the plastic pods.   A digital caliper helps greatly here.

Outside diameter:

Inside diameter:










Next step is to break out the drafting board and tools in order to lay out the full-size template on a piece of manila folder stock.  This template will be used at the lathe during turning to constantly monitor progress on correct part shaping.

Once the template is drawn, I carefully cut it in half along the centerline using a straightedge and  a sharp X-Acto blade

 I carefully cut out the curvature of the part, following the line precisely.

Again, using a straightedge, the cut is extended straight back along the line defining the outside diameter.  Note that I am not cutting out a line for the inside diameter that marks the base.  Doing so would not allow the template to rest evenly on the balsa stock during turning.

Also note that the template is only marked for the locations of the part's base and rear cut-off line. Once the part is correctly shaped on the lathe, these marks will be transferred to the stock as reference for those additional operations.  I'm going for a 6mm base length, as this should be adequate for gluing into the plastic pod.

The template is now cut out and ready for use.

Steampunk Protostar #12 - Like Peas In A Pod.....

Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen,

It's time to proceed on to the Protostar kit's fin pods.

The first step, of course, is to cut away the bases of the three noses used for the pods, per the kit instructions.

Behold, I do follow instructions....sometimes....

The cuts are carefully made using many passes of a sharp X-Acto blade, followed by a sanding block to clean up the edges.

As with the tail section and nose, the pods' molding seam lines are removed by scraping with the hobby knife blade.

Now, here is where I must deviate from the stock Protostar in the interest of adding a 'Steampunk' detail.

In the fictitious grand scheme of things, I envision these fin pods to be three outboard tanks to hold the water supply for the mighty steam engine that drives this 'Marvelous Machine'.

At this point, the pods would not make very effective tanks if left open ended, so they need to have a lower cap installed.

So far, I have not found any ready made items in the BlastFromThePast La-BOR-a-tory that could fulfill this task, so I'm afraid I may have to grab some balsa stock, fire up the wood lathe, and custom make the parts.

Stay tuned.....

More Rocket Stuff....

This week I popped into the local HobbyTown store.  The primary reason for the visit was to pick up a couple packs of B4-2 motors with which to fly my latest glider models.  For some reason, Hobby Lobby doesn't see fit to stock that particular flavor.

Of course, while I was there, I just had to check out what was new on the wall full of Estes kits.  I was hoping to maybe find a 60th Anniversary Alpha, but HT hasn't started stocking the newer stuff yet.

Instead, the item that caught my eye was a Nike Apache kit hanging out there right in front of everything else.

It beckoned to me.

OK, so, I am the furthest thing from being a compulsive shopper.  Whenever I step in to a store, I usually know what I'm after, find it, buy it, and move on.

Today was different.

Today was not the same.

There was that Nike Apache....

Begging to be bought....

And, there was, after all, an extra 20 note in my wallet, I reasoned.
It took a few additional times of walking and browsing about the store - pondering the present dilemma.

I finally capitulated!

An extra little bonus to the visit was the presence of a small stack of 2018 Estes catalogs. 

I got one as a freebie.

It's great to see the return of print catalogs from Estes.  Like most everyone else, I am thrilled about the new ownership of the company, and the anticipation of a lot of good stuff coming our way from Penrose.







Including this.....

I'm already saving up pocket change in the ol' coffee can....

Steampunk Protostar #11, Just Nosing Around....

The next part of the build is to prepare the model's nose.

A quick aside - I'm trying to train myself to abandon some of the model rocketry terminology that was engrained in my brain back in the 70s, and start using the more modern versions.  Things like 'nose' instead of 'nose cone'; 'motor' rather than 'engine' (though Estes still uses 'engine' in their literature); and 'starter' as opposed to 'igniter'.  Old habits die hard, and you will probably still see some of the old stuff here on the blog.  But I'm trying.

There is nothing particularly unique about prepping the Protostar nose co....er...nose.

One item that the instructions didn't address is filing down the recovery attachment eye after the mold flashing is removed.  There will be remnants of a sharp line of plastic that, if left in place, could cut into the shock cord over time and cause a failure..  A little work with a small needle file takes care of this.

A bit of scraping with an X-Acto blade takes care of the nose's molding seams.

The Protostar kit comes with three pats of clay for nose weight.

Since the hole in the nose base is fairly large, the clay pats are quite easy to install and tamp in place with a half inch dowel.

Rinse and Repeat 2 more times.








A little bit of CA is dripped into the cone to help hold the clay in place.

All done!

That's a fairly heave nose.

Next post - It's on to yet more plastic parts sub-assembly - fin pod prep.

An Astronomical Interlude

A couple of posts back, I mentioned that my grand-kids were over for a visit on Saturday, during which we built the three models in the Estes '3 Bandits' kit.

Later that evening, I happened to look outside and see a bright, nearly first quarter moon hanging in the sky.
I pulled out my old 60mm refractor telescope from the closet, and set it up on the back deck so that the kids could view the moon.  Lots of  Ooohs, Aaaahs, and "Cool !"s as we took turns observing all of the craters, mountains and plains highlighted along the moon's limb using a 25mm eyepiece.

While we were out, I noticed that Venus was hanging well above the western horizon, so I trained the telescope on that object. To my surprise, the seeing (degree of atmospheric turbulence) was very good, and we could distinctively see Venus' 'half disc' phase.

A further scan of the sky along the ecliptic revealed yet another of the bright planets. 
"I'm betting that's Jupiter"  I told the kids.  The view in the telescope optics confirmed it.  More exclamations from the young 'uns as we were able to make out the north and south equatorial bands and two of the Galilean moons using a higher power eyepiece.

"Grampa, what is that one?" one  of the kids exclaimed, pointing further eastward.

I looked, and to my surprise, there was a bright reddish steady object. 
Mars.
The telescopic view didn't show too much remarkable there.  A small reddish disc.

It was then that I noticed, about halfway between the moon and Mars, another fainter steady object.
"No way!", I said,  "That's got to be Saturn!"

Sure enough, the ringed planet was easily visible and a pleasant sight at around 100x. The planet currently is at a point in its orbit where the rings are near full inclination to our view. More gleeful reactions from the kids.

I was pretty thrilled at all of this myself, mainly because I had never before observed the moon and the four brighter planets so closely aligned along the ecliptic, and observable on the same evening.

It was truly a great day with the grand kids for model rocketry and solar system visual astronomy!