About 5 years ago, my son brought his girl friend over for dinner.
We got to discussing rockets.
Since I was constantly working on the house this was one of the off times from rocketry.
We dug out my stuff, pulled out the old trusted Wizard and put it up a few times.
After they left, I got to thinking what a great little rocket that was.
I wondered how a bigger version would do.
So I sim'ed an upscale. And one a little larger, and larger, and larger.
So now I've made several sim's, and they all did well after fudging around with different Engines.
So on with the builds.
BT-50, BT-55, BT-60, BT-70, BT-80. Even a downscale to BT-5, and a BT-20 mini engine.
Now, I had a little trouble with the BT-70. I tried to use Great Stuff to foam the can.
That didn't work out so well, so I ordered another EM and tube. Problem solved.
In the process, I lost our house, the wood shop and all.
Everything was packed in boxes and put in storage at my buddy's old farm house.
Couple years passed and I finally got to dig out my rocket stuff and set up a little shop in the master bedroom here in the apartment.
When I pulled the BT-50 18mm EM Wizard out of the box...one of the fins was split all the way to the fillet. No other rocket was damaged what so ever.
Cut a new fin, applied several coats of TB, sanded smooth, glued it on and did the fillets, sanded all nice and smooth.
Then, someone brought bed bugs into the apartment.
Had to box everything up again and take it out to have the place heat treated.
Few weeks ago, I got that same rocket out of the box, and I'll be Danged if one of the fins wasn't all gouged up and nicked.
Didn't feel it was bad enough to replace the fin. Patched up the fin wood filler, coated with TB and sanded smooth.
At this point I was a little afraid that the balsa I had used might be too soft, I decided to paper the fins.
Cut a template, papered all the fins so they overlapped on the edges, and applied several coats of BT.
Sanded it smooth, but went through in a few places, so I decided I needed to add a couple coats more.
Got up the next day, and I'll be Danged, if the friggin paper did delaminate! ARRRGGGG. Wrinkles and bubbles all over the place.
So, I took the ol' Xacto knife out, cut down the edges and peeled the paper off, and all the TB down to the base coat.
That should have rang a bell, but I kept going.
When I was done, I sat the rocket down, and it slowly twisted and fell over.
All 3 fins were cracked just at the top of the fillets, now totally useless.
Now I face the terrible fact of carving those nice fillets off, to make and mount 3 new fins.
I am thinking this rocket is an omen or something.
Maybe I should make the fins out out of plywood, like on all of it's bigger brothers?
Or should I use balsa, use Epoxy instead of TB for all the procedures mentioned above?
Or should I put what's left in the trash can and start over?
Should I just forget about this one?
Or is it telling me to switch to BT-56 size tube?
Although, I would have to find, or custom order a matching nose cone in balsa.
This is just, "One of Them Rockets" that plague you every now and again.
We got to discussing rockets.
Since I was constantly working on the house this was one of the off times from rocketry.
We dug out my stuff, pulled out the old trusted Wizard and put it up a few times.
After they left, I got to thinking what a great little rocket that was.
I wondered how a bigger version would do.
So I sim'ed an upscale. And one a little larger, and larger, and larger.
So now I've made several sim's, and they all did well after fudging around with different Engines.
So on with the builds.
BT-50, BT-55, BT-60, BT-70, BT-80. Even a downscale to BT-5, and a BT-20 mini engine.
Now, I had a little trouble with the BT-70. I tried to use Great Stuff to foam the can.
That didn't work out so well, so I ordered another EM and tube. Problem solved.
In the process, I lost our house, the wood shop and all.
Everything was packed in boxes and put in storage at my buddy's old farm house.
Couple years passed and I finally got to dig out my rocket stuff and set up a little shop in the master bedroom here in the apartment.
When I pulled the BT-50 18mm EM Wizard out of the box...one of the fins was split all the way to the fillet. No other rocket was damaged what so ever.
Cut a new fin, applied several coats of TB, sanded smooth, glued it on and did the fillets, sanded all nice and smooth.
Then, someone brought bed bugs into the apartment.
Had to box everything up again and take it out to have the place heat treated.
Few weeks ago, I got that same rocket out of the box, and I'll be Danged if one of the fins wasn't all gouged up and nicked.
Didn't feel it was bad enough to replace the fin. Patched up the fin wood filler, coated with TB and sanded smooth.
At this point I was a little afraid that the balsa I had used might be too soft, I decided to paper the fins.
Cut a template, papered all the fins so they overlapped on the edges, and applied several coats of BT.
Sanded it smooth, but went through in a few places, so I decided I needed to add a couple coats more.
Got up the next day, and I'll be Danged, if the friggin paper did delaminate! ARRRGGGG. Wrinkles and bubbles all over the place.
So, I took the ol' Xacto knife out, cut down the edges and peeled the paper off, and all the TB down to the base coat.
That should have rang a bell, but I kept going.
When I was done, I sat the rocket down, and it slowly twisted and fell over.
All 3 fins were cracked just at the top of the fillets, now totally useless.
Now I face the terrible fact of carving those nice fillets off, to make and mount 3 new fins.
I am thinking this rocket is an omen or something.
Maybe I should make the fins out out of plywood, like on all of it's bigger brothers?
Or should I use balsa, use Epoxy instead of TB for all the procedures mentioned above?
Or should I put what's left in the trash can and start over?
Should I just forget about this one?
Or is it telling me to switch to BT-56 size tube?
Although, I would have to find, or custom order a matching nose cone in balsa.
This is just, "One of Them Rockets" that plague you every now and again.
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