Dr. Zooch - Vostok Build - FINISHED!

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Mushtang

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My first build thread!

Disclaimer: I'm a newbie at rocket building. This is rocket number 7 for me. Ever. This isn't going to be so much of a How This Should Be Done thread as much as a This Is How I Screwed Up or maybe a Point And Laugh Because You'd Know Better thread. I'm okay with that.

I don't mind providing you with entertainment and giving you a reason to sit back and say to yourself, "That's cute. I remember when I used to follow the instructions and do it that way too."

You're given my full permission to point and laugh, or to mock me within this thread.

HISTORY -
A few months ago I bought an Estes Saturn V that I wanted to build, but knowing that I didn't have the skills to build it I tried about 5 kits first and then got too impatient and went ahead with the Saturn. It turned out okay I guess. But by that time I was really enjoying this hobby and knew it wouldn't stop with that one. I recently finished a Big Bertha and wanted to get back to modeling an actual rocket.

The only kits up until now that I've built have been Estes kits, and so when I found this Vostok kit available from JonRockets on Amazon I got it, thinking it would be mostly the same kind of kit. But it's NOT!

The first difference is that the parts are a lot smaller, and I can see that this might be the smallest rocket in my growing collection, but the amount of detail seems like it's a lot more than the others to make up for the small size.

The second big difference seems to be the complexity. This is definitely not a level 1 build. I'm a little nervous, but even if it turns into a messy pile of glue, tubes, and fins, I'll probably learn something to use on the next build.

And the final big difference is the instructions are hilarious! I'm showing my wife some of these sheets and telling her "read the 2nd and 3rd paragraph" and she cracks up - even though she's not involved in building rockets.

So thanks Dr Zooch for making a kit that looks as fun as it will be difficult.
 
THE BUILD -
First I'll post an out of focus picture of the small parts. These are laying on a cutting mat that is lined in 1" squares, so you can see that the parts are much smaller than your average Estes kit. I believe he called this "ant scale" rocketry.

3388e2a4-147e-4759-a650-56818dfd772e.jpg
 
Step 1 was to look at the parts.
Step 2 was to cut out and form an alignment sleeve. The instructions say that this isn't actually used until step 16, but the instructions has space for it in step 2, so that's where they put it.

I flipped on and read step 16 to see how it was being used since it wasn't clear from the instructions which direction to roll it up. The sleeve is a rectangle and it said to roll it around the big body tube and tape the ends, so before I started rolling I assumed that the ends would just barely meet and I'd tape them butted together, but that wasn't the case.

Rolling the sleeve in a landscape direction resulted in a big overlap, but rolling it portrait wouldn't even wrap all the way around. So I opted for the landscape. From the best that I could tell in reading the instruction steps 16 and on, that's what I was supposed to do.

7bccdce2-700a-4411-981d-47b2277ac081.jpg
 
SEAM FILLING -

There are 2 body tubes in the kit, both have seams, but I wasn't sure if they both needed to be filled. Looking ahead in the instructions the best I could tell was that a large portion of the bottom tube would be covered by the strap on rockets so maybe I didn't have to fill the entire seam.

Looking further I could see that it's likely that the body tube will be visible between the strap on rockets, and I just wasn't sure.

I couldn't find anywhere in the instructions where it said to fill them or not, so I decided to go ahead and fill them.

The seams were nearly impossible to see with my old eyes, so before I tried to fill them I ran a pencil around the seams to show me where they were.

Here's the pencil lines on the tubes before filling:
a24017fc-6748-4ea6-ae1e-72767d9c1b75.jpg


I've already mixed up (from the previous builds) a bunch of Chris Michielssen's suggested 1:4 mix of Carpenter's Wood Fill to water, to make a thick paste to fill the seams with, so using my hobby knife I filled the seams and sanded off the excess

Then I taped off the filled seams, sprayed them with primer, and sanded the seams smooth again.

Here is one tube all finished, and the other with the primer before I sanded it smooth:
7114893c-927a-48ce-9ae7-fd1ac15cb173.jpg
 
The next step is to draw 8 parallel lines, evenly spaced, down the lower body tube.

There is a template in the instructions to set the end of the tube on and make marks at the end to indicate where the lines will go. Then the instructions tell you to use a door frame to extend the marks along the tube.

I first grabbed a length of aluminum angle to use, but the tube nearly disappeared down inside the angle and I didn't think I'd be able to use it very well. It's a small tube!

Luckily, being an engineer, I happen to have a small engineering scale that my company made for give aways years ago. This is a 3 sided metal scale and is perfect for drawing parallel lines on a small tube like this.

0cf3afce-41df-4fc8-9b30-30972d33bfa1.jpg
 
The next steps involved gluing in a retaining ring, cutting a slot for the motor clip, gluing on a reinforcement band at the slot, and taping the motor clip in place.

All this went just fine with the exception of putting in the retaining ring. You're supposed to put glue on the ring and slide it into the tube until it's just above the clip sticking through the wall. Luckily I'd read on these forums tales of people trying this and getting the ring stuck halfway to the intended depth and not being able to move it.

To avoid that I marked a dowel to the right depth, dipped the end into some glue, and used it to spread glue inside the body tube at the correct place. The theory being that the ring would slide freely until it hit the glue, and before the glue could set up I'd have the ring in place. In theory communism works too. I guess this being a model of a communist rocket I should have had more luck.

Like a newbie, I didn't think to check the inside of the tube for drips.

Luckily the ring wasn't permanently stuck, I managed to really push on it and force it to twist around in the tube, slide down, and then twist back into place. Unfortunately I also realized I probably put too much glue in the tube for the thin walls of the tube, and I could tell they got a little mushy.

But I sat the whole thing down and let it dry, and when I checked it this morning everything appears to be okay. Whew!

So here is the motor mount, finished and ready for the next step.
b3c34cdc-abea-40e1-9ae4-6a1a7b7abfa7.jpg


I'll post more after I build more this weekend.
 
Your doing great so far, but the hard parts are yet to come. You can do it! You have the required tools, talent and patience. To roll the paper with out creases follow the Ant and use the supplied dowel and a mouse pad, making several passes. Lightly steaming the paper over the kettle will help. Or I just gulp some beer and exhale deeply on the paper to moisten it up, what I call the porn method but it works. Use a tacky glue like Ileens Tacky - but don't tell the Hi Power epoxy only guys at the launch about the old lady glue or the porn method. Just show off your perfectly rolled boosters and witches hats.
 
My first build thread!

Disclaimer: I'm a newbie at rocket building. This is rocket number 7 for me. Ever. This isn't going to be so much of a How This Should Be Done thread as much as a This Is How I Screwed Up or maybe a Point And Laugh Because You'd Know Better thread. I'm okay with that.

I don't mind providing you with entertainment and giving you a reason to sit back and say to yourself, "That's cute. I remember when I used to follow the instructions and do it that way too."

You're given my full permission to point and laugh, or to mock me within this thread.

HISTORY -
A few months ago I bought an Estes Saturn V that I wanted to build, but knowing that I didn't have the skills to build it I tried about 5 kits first and then got too impatient and went ahead with the Saturn. It turned out okay I guess. But by that time I was really enjoying this hobby and knew it wouldn't stop with that one. I recently finished a Big Bertha and wanted to get back to modeling an actual rocket.

The only kits up until now that I've built have been Estes kits, and so when I found this Vostok kit available from JonRockets on Amazon I got it, thinking it would be mostly the same kind of kit. But it's NOT!

The first difference is that the parts are a lot smaller, and I can see that this might be the smallest rocket in my growing collection, but the amount of detail seems like it's a lot more than the others to make up for the small size.

The second big difference seems to be the complexity. This is definitely not a level 1 build. I'm a little nervous, but even if it turns into a messy pile of glue, tubes, and fins, I'll probably learn something to use on the next build.

And the final big difference is the instructions are hilarious! I'm showing my wife some of these sheets and telling her "read the 2nd and 3rd paragraph" and she cracks up - even though she's not involved in building rockets.

So thanks Dr Zooch for making a kit that looks as fun as it will be difficult.

Zooch kits are fun... BUT, most of them are BUILDER'S KITS. What I mean by that is, they're designed to use building techniques that were pretty much the status quo back in the 60's, 70's, and 80's... back in the ancient times before "ready to fly" stuff was thought of (my first rocket was an Alpha III, which was the closest thing to "ready to fly" that existed in those days... glue the motor mount together, glue it in the tube, glue the fin unit on, screw the enclosed screw eye into the nosecone, glue the "teabag" shock cord mount in the front of the tube aways down, and put the parachute together... simple... but that was as close to "RTF" as existed back then!)

At any rate, some are harder than others... the old Discoverer Thor would have been an ideal "Zooch starter" kit, because it was a straightforward "old school" build (tube, motor mount, cut yer own fins using the pattern, sand the nosecone a bit to refine the shape, sand-n-seal yer transition, apply a paper wrap to the Agena upper stage, and build a biconical paper rocket nozzle from cardstock and thread...) that would introduce you to many of the most important skills needed for this build... the Mark II would be a good kit to 'cut your teeth' on as well...

This kit, having so many rolled cardstock components, relies pretty heavily on paper modeling skills... Here's a link for you to check out if you want to learn more about papermodeling and see what's possible... pretty neat stuff! https://www.papermodelers.com/

I've got this one but I haven't been in any rush to build it... I'd like to improve my papermodeling skills a bit before I jump in on it...

Another nice thing about the Zooch kits is, you can afford to learn on them... at $20 or so each, even if it doesn't turn out as nice as you'd like, it won't bankrupt you to get another one later on and use your improved skills to make a nicer one... since your rocket will "end up rotting on a power line or stuck in a tree anyway, forcing you to come back to us and buy another kit." LOL:)

Later and good luck! Looking forward to seeing your work! OL JR :)
 
The next step is to draw 8 parallel lines, evenly spaced, down the lower body tube.

There is a template in the instructions to set the end of the tube on and make marks at the end to indicate where the lines will go. Then the instructions tell you to use a door frame to extend the marks along the tube.

I first grabbed a length of aluminum angle to use, but the tube nearly disappeared down inside the angle and I didn't think I'd be able to use it very well. It's a small tube!

Luckily, being an engineer, I happen to have a small engineering scale that my company made for give aways years ago. This is a 3 sided metal scale and is perfect for drawing parallel lines on a small tube like this.

0cf3afce-41df-4fc8-9b30-30972d33bfa1.jpg


GREAT idea! Personally I hate the "doorjamb method" (it was a great idea starting out (like I did back in 85) but as soon as you start building more than 2-3 rockets it's time to move up in the world, IMHO). This little triangle engineer's scale looks great for the job!

Personally I use some 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/8 aluminum angle I picked up at the hardware store... usually comes in 3 foot lengths-- hacksaw off a foot long piece and then you have a 2 foot length for marking REALLY LONG tubes at some point if you need it... I also recommend a 1 x 1 x 1/8 aluminum angle as well for larger tubes (BT-60 or so and up). For really small tubes, I picked up a piece of brass angle at the hobby shop, 1/4 x 1/4 x (pretty darn thin-- maybe 0.040" thick). Works great!

Estes is also coming out with tube marking guide tool, which John Boren of Estes showed at NARAM this past summer, which he described as "a portable doorjamb"... great idea! Should be out by now or soon will be... highly recommended if you don't already have tube line guides (angles).

One other recommendation on tools, before you get too deep in making cardstock cones and stuff-- the handiest tools I've found yet (and virtually indispensible IMHO) are SMOOTH JAWED HEMOSTATS... now unfortunately, I haven't found a source for ready-made smooth jawed hemostats... most have ribbed jaws that interlock, since they're actually a surgical tool made for clamping off blood vessels and such during surgeries... stuff which tends to be quite slippery and therefore need the additional "traction" of the serrated jaws, like a pair of pliers... Unfortunately, the serrated jaws tend to emboss their pattern into the paper, making for UGLY parts... The jaws are slightly 'springy' and clamp firmly when locked togther... BUT, a few light passes across a grinding wheel will rapidly remove the fine serrations and leave the jaws smooth and ready for paper modeling work... with no serrations, no UGLY SERRATION EMBOSSED INTO THE PAPER!

I highly recommend getting some of these at the hardware store... many "mom-n-pop" hardware stores (especially ACE hardwares) tend to have a "bucket" of the things by the registers, and they're like $1.00 each... cheap enough to pick a few up and take the dremel or shop grinder to them to make them smooth jawed... they're EXTREMELY helpful for making the small paper parts like nozzles and "witches hats" found in the kit... as extensions to your fingers... they're also terrific for clamping the seams in place while the glue dries, to prevent the paper from uncurling and the seams pulling apart... Handiest thing since sliced bread!!!

Hope this helps! OL JR :)
 
Mushtang...great job so far! I have been eyeing this kit from the Doc (newbie here as well...) keep up the good work!
 
Luke....you should try a Zooch Saturn 1b...would love to see your skills on one of those babies! Like the Vostok..that is one sexy rocket. Throw caution to the winds, and roll them LOX tanks!!!

Zooch kits are fun... BUT, most of them are BUILDER'S KITS. What I mean by that is, they're designed to use building This kit, having so many rolled cardstock components, relies pretty heavily on paper modeling skills... Here's a link for you to check out if you want to learn more about papermodeling and see what's possible... pretty neat stuff! https://www.papermodelers.com/

I've got this one but I haven't been in any rush to build it... I'd like to improve my papermodeling skills a bit before I jump in on it...
 
Luke....you should try a Zooch Saturn 1b...would love to see your skills on one of those babies! Like the Vostok..that is one sexy rocket. Throw caution to the winds, and roll them LOX tanks!!!

Zooch kits are fun... BUT, most of them are BUILDER'S KITS. What I mean by that is, they're designed to use building This kit, having so many rolled cardstock components, relies pretty heavily on paper modeling skills... Here's a link for you to check out if you want to learn more about papermodeling and see what's possible... pretty neat stuff! https://www.papermodelers.com/

I've got this one but I haven't been in any rush to build it... I'd like to improve my papermodeling skills a bit before I jump in on it...

Yeah, I've got ALL the Doc's Saturn I/IB's, but I just haven't started any of them yet... got too many other 'half finished' projects on the build table...

Soon, my friend, soon... :)

Later! OL JR :)
 
This kit, having so many rolled cardstock components, relies pretty heavily on paper modeling skills... Here's a link for you to check out if you want to learn more about papermodeling and see what's possible... pretty neat stuff! https://www.papermodelers.com/
Thanks for the link. I'll definitely be checking it out tonight before I continue. I rolled some paper for the model this weekend and it wasn't pretty.

I've got this one but I haven't been in any rush to build it... I'd like to improve my papermodeling skills a bit before I jump in on it...
But that's why I'm building this rocket. The best way for me to learn is to do it wrong and see what I should have done. I had no doubt I'd mess this up, but I knew it would be fun to build. And I decided to post my failure in this thread so others could watch me crash and burn and see how a newbie would do on something like this.

Another nice thing about the Zooch kits is, you can afford to learn on them... at $20 or so each, even if it doesn't turn out as nice as you'd like, it won't bankrupt you to get another one later on and use your improved skills to make a nicer one.
That's the plan! I'll probably build another one of these a year from now, and come back and post pictures of the good one on the end of this thread for comparison. Heh.

Thanks for the kind words though. Here comes some more posts of my build.
 
When it came time to make the reduction shroud I did the smart thing and scanned the pattern sheet first, edited a copy and gave myself multiple shrouds to use. I figured I'd build 4 of them and by the time I got to the 4th one I'd have at least one that would work. Here's my edited sheet with 4 patterns.
915a57e8-826b-4af2-8d9b-8725d4759de5.jpg


Here is where my inexperience at making card model pieces shows. None of the shrouds fit! I cut the first one outside the lines, the second one inside the lines, the third one outside the line on the top but inside on the bottom, and the fourth one something else. The small end seemed to fit okay but I couldn't keep the big end from having a gap near the seam. Like this:
830496ec-7a2d-4fa6-a48f-bcab171fd659.jpg


It took a little sanding of the shroud that was closest to fitting, but eventually I got one that fit correctly on both tubes. I'm obviously doing something wrong when rolling and gluing these together.
5a5983aa-3676-49b3-ac4b-e23d20ef5fa8.jpg
 
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The kit came with one small sheet of balsa wood that wasn't marked, pre-cut, or anything that would have been helpful in any way. Heh. I guess this is part of the fun of a "builder's kit". But it's actually been a lot of fun so far!

The next step is to cut 8 "spider beams" from the balsa wood. I used my flat metal ruler to make straight cuts, approximately as wide as the sheet of wood was thick, and cut out 4 beams the full length of the sheet. These were a little over twice as long as I needed, so I then cut the 8 beams out and had 4 short pieces of balsa left over. I'm saving those in case I need them later.

From an earlier step I had drawn 8 lines around the motor tube and now I'm told to glue these beams onto the lines. In order to make sure they were all as straight as possible I glued them just off to the side of each line instead of on top of the lines. If I covered the lines I wouldn't have anything to reference to keep the beams straight.

I added a filet of glue to each side just in case. I'm sure there was more than enough glue on the bottom to hold them in place even though very little glue was used. But it made me feel better to add a little more. Here are the beams in place.

daa4e7d4-cf0c-495d-a4e9-538e559a13a2.jpg
 
That's really about all I could say about the capsule, considering how much space the instructions gave to it, and how much time it took.

So then I had to make the capsule tube. This is the top of the rocket where there is a little "escape hole" that you can see the capsule through. At first I thought the hole was just for this model, so you can see the capsule but after looking on the web it appears that the real size Vostok actually had this hole in the side of the upper stage too. That surprises me because I'd think it would ruin the aerodynamics of the rocket, but I guess it did okay since they beat us into space with it.

This was truly going to be a test of my X-acto skillz! The template (which I scanned and reprinted) has a printed oval shape to cut out, and then you use that to transfer the shape onto the tube, and then cut the hole in the tube. There's a lot of places to mess up there.

But I went super slow and just used the tip of the knife to scratch the shape in the card stock over and over until I finally cut through. I was happy with the hole and didn't want to go through that again, so with a little sanding the hole sides were smooth and something I could use to draw the shape on the tube.

The instructions suggest putting a D or E engine into the tube to make cutting easier, but since I'm new and haven't ventured out of the B engines yet I didn't have any. So I had to be even more careful cutting the hold in the tube. I did the same thing, scratching the knife on the pencil mark, over and over, slightly deeper each time, and eventually I broke through and had cut a good shape. It took about twice as long as cutting the card stock. More sanding and I was happy with the shape and the edges.

It's not perfect, but it works for me.

2e540a4f-4671-4a80-b2e7-c6f82757c987.jpg
 
Its really useful to see this, thanks for posting. My own papermofelling skills are fairly well developed but rusty and this thread is making me want ro have another bash at doing some.

Thanks for sharing this
 
When it came time to make the reduction shroud I did the smart thing and scanned the pattern sheet first, edited a copy and gave myself multiple shrouds to use. I figured I'd build 4 of them and by the time I got to the 4th one I'd have at least one that would work.
It took a little sanding of the shroud that was closest to fitting, but eventually I got one that fit correctly on both tubes. I'm obviously doing something wrong when rolling and gluing these together.

Hi Mushtang,
You're not doing anything wrong, shrouds are just a bear to get right sometimes.
Usually if you cut right down the middle of the black outside line they should be a close fit.
But, you can be just one side or the other when gluing at the tab and have a slight variance in the fit.
 
After gluing in a balsa plug into the bottom of that tube, the next step is to paint the inside of the tube black. I wrapped the outside of the tube with tape and sprayed the black inside. A little bit of black paint got onto the outside of the tube but it sanded off easy enough. The capsule was glued onto the bottom and it was finished.

The balsa nose cone was sanded, painted with watered down Carpenters Wood Fill, sanded, primed, sanded, primed, sanded, and painted black. The instructions said to use flat black but all I had was glossy, but I do have flat clear coat so that should take off the shine when I'm completely done.

Now the real fun begins! Rolling the strap on rockets. This went easier than I expected, the real trick was the witches hats that go on top of the rockets. Before starting I'd scanned and reprinted several copies of the rocket patterns so I could mess up a lot, which I did, but I eventually got 4 rockets made.

I started by putting the cut out pattern on a stack of napkins (I don't know if you can tell from any of my pictures, but my build area is the kitchen table. Having the napkin holder right there is GREAT! I'm grabbing those constantly to wipe off glue, CWF, etc.) and rolling the dowel across it. After I got a good curve started on the paper I put the napkins back into the holder and curled the rocket with my hands while breathing hot moist air down the inside. I think I read that this was the "porn" method?? But it definitely looks dirty.

Here's the first rocket tube and my finished capsule section.
db79ac84-a32f-4bf9-b059-2a2a7a93911b.jpg


You can see a little pencil arrow on the top of the capsule. I only sanded one side of the capsule since only one side would show, and the pencil mark helped me make sure that was the side facing out. It was erased shortly after this picture was taken, even though it probably wouldn't have been seen either.
 
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I made 6 rocket tubes before I was happy with 4 of them. I'm sure that the experienced paper rollers here wouldn't be happy with any of my tubes because they're not perfectly straight, or they all don't look the same, but that's the way I roll. Heh.

As I made the tubes I'd stack them up on each other to try and keep them as round as possible. I noticed that the first one I made kept deforming as the glue dried on the glue flap. It started off as a usable tube but went in the garbage because of the deform. Stacking them seemed to keep that from happening. I also cut back on the amount of glue I was using (which wasn't a lot to begin with) as well as cutting about half of the glue flap off. That flap was a lot bigger than it needs to be (and this is coming from a LOT of experience rolling card stock tubes you know).

The witches hats were even more tricky to roll. Last week I'd found an old thread where someone suggested cutting more flaps on the bottom of the hat than the pattern shows and that's what I was planning to do, but when it came time to roll them I decided to try something else.

I rolled the hats without cutting any flaps, and would wait and cut them after they were glued up. That way I could cut them to the pattern first and then further cut them if I thought it was needed.

After they were all rolled I added a couple drops of CA to the tips and used a scrap piece of card stock to spread the CA around and managed to do all 4 hats without gluing the scrap piece to anything.

Here are the 4 rockets all stacked up, and the 4 witches hats that I'll try and use. I went to bed after this, so I'll post more after I do more.

8c43b674-d259-46ab-9ef6-86dd8ef17e1f.jpg
 
When it came time to make the reduction shroud I did the smart thing and scanned the pattern sheet first, edited a copy and gave myself multiple shrouds to use. I figured I'd build 4 of them and by the time I got to the 4th one I'd have at least one that would work. Here's my edited sheet with 4 patterns.

Here is where my inexperience at making card model pieces shows. None of the shrouds fit! I cut the first one outside the lines, the second one inside the lines, the third one outside the line on the top but inside on the bottom, and the fourth one something else. The small end seemed to fit okay but I couldn't keep the big end from having a gap near the seam. Like this:

It took a little sanding of the shroud that was closest to fitting, but eventually I got one that fit correctly on both tubes. I'm obviously doing something wrong when rolling and gluing these together.
]

Yeah, this is one of the first things that usually gets folks... where to cut??

Dr. Zooch usually makes the shrouds a meticulously good fit... so cutting "right ON the line" usually comes out just right... it can REALLY be a pain trying to cut LONG sweeping curves and not have any irregularities or "waves" in the cut... a cool, steady hand, making slow progress, and a SHARP #11 hobby knife is really the ticket here...

You know the old saying about "measure twice, cut once"... if in doubt, cut a little long-- you can always cut a little more off, but once you've cut it too short, you can't add any back on..." Well, this is ESPECIALLY true with paper parts... I usually cut JUST outside the line on most paper shrouds and stuff in Zooch kits... essentially ON the line, but on the OUTSIDE EDGE of it... sometimes I end up having to trim a hair's width off stuff to make it fit "pretty" but better safe than sorry-- easier to cut a little more off than try to put some back on... :)

Don't worry about the "gaps" too much... you'll never get them cut 100% dead on... the white glue will fill small gaps and if one is a bit too big, well, you can always just keep applying a little bit of white glue to the spot until you finally "weld the hole up". It takes time and it's not the prettiest way to do it, but it CAN work...

Later and good job so far! OL JR :)
 
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That's really about all I could say about the capsule, considering how much space the instructions gave to it, and how much time it took.

So then I had to make the capsule tube. This is the top of the rocket where there is a little "escape hole" that you can see the capsule through. At first I thought the hole was just for this model, so you can see the capsule but after looking on the web it appears that the real size Vostok actually had this hole in the side of the upper stage too. That surprises me because I'd think it would ruin the aerodynamics of the rocket, but I guess it did okay since they beat us into space with it.

This was truly going to be a test of my X-acto skillz! The template (which I scanned and reprinted) has a printed oval shape to cut out, and then you use that to transfer the shape onto the tube, and then cut the hole in the tube. There's a lot of places to mess up there.

But I went super slow and just used the tip of the knife to scratch the shape in the card stock over and over until I finally cut through. I was happy with the hole and didn't want to go through that again, so with a little sanding the hole sides were smooth and something I could use to draw the shape on the tube.

The instructions suggest putting a D or E engine into the tube to make cutting easier, but since I'm new and haven't ventured out of the B engines yet I didn't have any. So I had to be even more careful cutting the hold in the tube. I did the same thing, scratching the knife on the pencil mark, over and over, slightly deeper each time, and eventually I broke through and had cut a good shape. It took about twice as long as cutting the card stock. More sanding and I was happy with the shape and the edges.

It's not perfect, but it works for me.

Now you're getting the hang of it... that's EXACTLY how you're supposed to do it! Don't try cutting through stuff in one pass... that usually ends up messing stuff up. Many light passes works much better and gives a cleaner shape.

The Vostok spacecraft was enclosed in a large aerodynamic shroud on top of the booster rocket to make it aerodynamic, since as a perfect sphere with a big double inverse conical "service module" with antennas bristling out all over it, it wasn't particularly aerodynamic... plus it needed to be protected from the aerodynamic heating experienced by rockets as they ascend through the atmosphere (for instance, the shuttle ET experienced heating of over 400 degrees on it's oxygen tank "nosecone" dome, and in the areas where the supersonic shockwaves coming off the SRB nosecones impinged on the tank walls, and the orbiter nosecone shockwave as well, etc. They also had to have a way to get the astronaut into the capsule, and for him to "escape" if anything went wrong. Vostok didn't have a 'tractor escape rocket' like our Mercury did-- it used an ejection seat like the Gemini capsules did (of dubious value on ascent anyway). As the Soviets had not yet perfected the "touchdown retrorockets" that soften the impact of the capsule landing on the land, the Vostok astronauts actually ejected from the capsule and landed under their personal parachutes shortly before the capsule itself landed with a definite THUD on the steppes below... Later when the adapted the Vostok design into the three-man Voskhod (by simply cramming three couches into the tiny Vostok-- ohh, CLEVER!!!) they deleted the ejection seats because by that time I think they had developed a small retrorocket attached to the shroud line above the capsule that softened the blow just before the capsule touched down... IIRC... which allowed the three cosmonauts to remain inside the capsule...

SO, THAT is why the round outer surface and "hatch" of the capsule are visible through the "port" in the aero-fairing on the side of the Vostok and Voskhod...

Later! OL JR :)
 
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Hi Mushtang,
You're not doing anything wrong, shrouds are just a bear to get right sometimes.
Usually if you cut right down the middle of the black outside line they should be a close fit.
But, you can be just one side or the other when gluing at the tab and have a slight variance in the fit.

Thanks for bringing that up, Chris... forgot about that when I posted...

Accuracy in gluing up the tab seams is VERY important as Chris said...

I usually glue the tab JUST COVERING the line... maybe with just about HALF the line showing at most... it requires some conscientious attention to detail to get the overlap just right... but the results are a good fit...

Later! OL JR :)
 
I made 6 rocket tubes before I was happy with 4 of them. I'm sure that the experienced paper rollers here wouldn't be happy with any of my tubes because they're not perfectly straight, or they all don't look the same, but that's the way I roll. Heh.

As I made the tubes I'd stack them up on each other to try and keep them as round as possible. I noticed that the first one I made kept deforming as the glue dried on the glue flap. It started off as a usable tube but went in the garbage because of the deform. Stacking them seemed to keep that from happening. I also cut back on the amount of glue I was using (which wasn't a lot to begin with) as well as cutting about half of the glue flap off. That flap was a lot bigger than it needs to be (and this is coming from a LOT of experience rolling card stock tubes you know).

The witches hats were even more tricky to roll. Last week I'd found an old thread where someone suggested cutting more flaps on the bottom of the hat than the pattern shows and that's what I was planning to do, but when it came time to roll them I decided to try something else.

I rolled the hats without cutting any flaps, and would wait and cut them after they were glued up. That way I could cut them to the pattern first and then further cut them if I thought it was needed.

After they were all rolled I added a couple drops of CA to the tips and used a scrap piece of card stock to spread the CA around and managed to do all 4 hats without gluing the scrap piece to anything.

Here are the 4 rockets all stacked up, and the 4 witches hats that I'll try and use. I went to bed after this, so I'll post more after I do more.
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Those look REALLY good... How do you keep from gluing all your conical tubes together with them nested like that?? :confused:

The biggest mistake that we all tend to make it using TOO MUCH GLUE. (Guilty as charged myself). It doesn't take a whole lot of glue to really do a seam on cardstock.

Those long seams are the worst... they tend to pucker and get wavy... my attempts to make a paper cone about 4x the size/length of these for a BT-80 Pershing II scratchbuild I've been toying with is what gave me reservations about doing the paper cone Russian Zoochies yet... :) From what I've read, the glue you use has a LOT to do with it...

Thinner, more watery white glue tends to make the paper warp and do other goofy things... thicker white glue is probably better in these situations... Titebond Moulding and Trim Glue might work, or a better choice would probably be Aileene's Tacky Glue, available at Hobby Lobby (and you can usually get some with a 40% off coupon!). Another possibility is just using as LITTLE glue as you can get by with, and I've even experimented with using "mini-double-glue joints" by applying a VERY THIN layer of white glue to the tab and the back edge of the paper opposite it where they'll overlap, and then letting that get VERY tacky before joining them together... this allows most of the water in the glue to "go away" before joining.

For REALLY long seams (like my aforementioned BT-80 size paper cone) one should probably dump the white glue altogether and switch to a rubber cement (contact cement)... the solvent based glue should have MUCH less effect on the paper structure than water-based glue (white glue). Still experimenting though, but that's what I've read...

Later and it's looking good! KUTGW! OL JR :)
 
Those look REALLY good... How do you keep from gluing all your conical tubes together with them nested like that?? :confused:
I stacked the first two together after the second one was wiped down to make sure no glue had snuck out, and then I pulled them apart and repositioned them very frequently. If I'd glued them together I would have redone them, not stacked them, and never mentioned stacking them in this thread. Heh.

The biggest mistake that we all tend to make it using TOO MUCH GLUE. (Guilty as charged myself). It doesn't take a whole lot of glue to really do a seam on cardstock.
I put on VERY little glue then smear it over the tab with my finger to make sure the entire tab is covered. By that time the glue is very tacky and there's not much glue so very little, if any, squeezes out.

Those long seams are the worst... they tend to pucker and get wavy...
After holding the paper in place long enough for the glue to set, I slide a dowel in and roll it over the seam on my table a lot to really smooth it out. This keeps the pucker from happening, something that couldn't be done with the closed top witches hats.
 
I stacked the first two together after the second one was wiped down to make sure no glue had snuck out, and then I pulled them apart and repositioned them very frequently. If I'd glued them together I would have redone them, not stacked them, and never mentioned stacking them in this thread. Heh.


I put on VERY little glue then smear it over the tab with my finger to make sure the entire tab is covered. By that time the glue is very tacky and there's not much glue so very little, if any, squeezes out.


After holding the paper in place long enough for the glue to set, I slide a dowel in and roll it over the seam on my table a lot to really smooth it out. This keeps the pucker from happening, something that couldn't be done with the closed top witches hats.

GREAT ideas!!! Thanks for sharing!

Are you using any kind of clamps?? I find the hemostats I mentioned before EXTREMELY helpful (twinkie-fingered fool that I am...:)) KUTGW!!! OL JR :)
 
Snip - After I got a good curve started on the paper I put the napkins back into the holder and curled the rocket with my hands while breathing hot moist air down the inside. I think I read that this was the "porn" method?? But it definitely looks dirty. - Snip

As long as you keep it in the privacy of your own build area and no web cams are around, and no one is in the house that can unexpectedly walk in on you, and your thoughts are pure and only focused on building good Zooch R-7 paper boosters, then the Rocket Gods will look the other way and there will be no creases or wrinkles to be found.

From the photos it looks like you have mastered the art of locking just enough moisture in the paper to get a good roll yet keep the tacky glue seam neat. Now Grasshopper, all you have to do is walk across the rice paper without leaving a trace and you will be ready to launch a Vostok!
 
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