7/15/04 - I cut the tube coupler material as well as the fin can tube coupler from one Sono tube. I then glassed the tube seam together as well as applying epoxy to the outside to help it slide a bit better. This meant I had to sand the outside to smooth it out, but it works. I plan on glassing the inside of the tube coupler later on.
7/19/04 - I finally got some 1/2 inch plywood to make the fins. They are some what shaped like the fins on Johnny Bravo. Using the fin pattern from Rocksim I cut out all 4 fins. Next is to sand the fins to all be the same size and shape. I am trying out an idea I been thinking about. Instead of clamping the fins together I drilled 4 holes and bolted them together to make it easier to sand them down. This makes more room and the clamps don't get in the way while sanding the fins. Once I finished sanding all the edges so they are the same, I will vacuum bag them to help stiffen them up a bit. This will also cover the holes used to hold them together while sanding. I liked the idea. It worked very well and I will use it again.
7/22/04 - While I was waiting for the nose cone to dry I wanted to cut the fin bevels. I made up a bigger jig to hold the bigger fins. The Jig is just a few pieces of wood that I made to slide right over my table saw fence. This allows me to use C-clamps to hold the fin to the jig and cut the fin bevels without the fin dropping into the saw while they are being cut. The fins came out great and now are ready to be glassed.
7/23/04 - Today I finished cutting out all the center rings including the lower and middle rings which have holes for the 76mm main motor tube and the four outboard 54mm motor tubes. This took some time to setup, but once I got the jig set it took about 15 minutes to cut all the holes to fit perfectly. I was also able to cut the fin can tube to length (42 inches) and I worked on the bulkhead for the fin can tube coupler. The next step will be to incorporate the timer section into the fin can body tube.
7/24-7/27 - During this time I was able to vacuum bag all 4 fins along with filling and sanding them all down. They need a quick finish sanding and they are ready to go.
On the fin can tube, I needed to cut all the slots for the fins. I have used the router table with good luck before so I built a quick jig to use the router table guide slot to make the cuts straight. It is just a simple two boards cut to work with the radius of the tube and them just c clamp the tube to the one side of the jig. The tube was them measured when the fins will go and drawn on the tube. Next I drilled a small hole so I could see inside the tube and know where to stop. All I had to do was load up the tube, line up the line as cut till I reached the guide hole. I used the guide hole as a reference as to when to stop. All the slots came out straight.
8/1/04 - Having the weekend off was nice. I didn't work on the rocket too much because we had some family visiting from out of town. I did manage to get a few things done. I modified the fins a bit so they would slip over the middle center ring. I liked how this worked with Tall Daddy and so I cut a notch in the fin tab at the top to slide over the middle center ring. I then set up all the center rings inside the fin can body tube with the fins and all 5 motors for a test fit. I also lined all the parts up. Once I knew everything was good, I tacked the fins to the upper center ring and main motor tube and set it aside to cure. While the fins where drying, I grabbed the fin can tube and cut out the timer bay hatch cover. Once the hole was cut, I wanted to use the tube coupler for the back support for the hatch cover. So I used the hole in the fin can BT to mark the tube coupler. Then I cut that out as well. Since the hatch cover was too small after enlarging the hole a little bit bigger to make it square, I had to make a new hatch cover. I just put two coverings of fiber glass on some spare body tube I had left over to make the new cover.
8/3/04 - Today was a full day of work taking care of more odds and ends. I started off by cutting some small pieces of fiberglass to glass the inner fin tabs. I liked how this turned out last time and it help make the fins rock solid. While the fiberglass was curing I also glassed the inside of the fin can tube couple. I wanted to beef this area up as well and it came out great. I set that aside and got working in the Alt-bay center ring. By then the fin tab glass was cured enough to work around it. So I then drilled a hole for some brass tubing to run the timer wires through. I also drilled out two holes for the timer connection on the end center ring plate. This will give me the connections for the 54mm air start motors. After I epoxied the tube in and ran the wire. I started to test fit the Fin can BT of the fin/motor mount assembly. After making a couple of modifications here and there, I test fitted the parts and got it ready to start the fin fillet epoxy. I used tape dams on all four fins front and back and started mixing epoxy. I was able to do two at a time with the 4 fin configuration. Using epoxy that setup in 10 to 15 minutes, I was able to knock out all 8 outer fillets in less than an hour. I then put it all together to take a quick couple of photos with me standing next to the rocket.
8/6/04 - I worked on the fin can today. I finished up fillets on the inside of the tube. I then set the fin can on end to seal in the middle center ring with epoxy on the bottom side. At the same time I placed the 4 outer motor tubes in place to epoxy them in as well. Once I ran the final wiring, I put on the bottom center ring and got it in place and then epoxied it in as well. I let that cure for a while. There was more glassing. I wanted to lay fiber glass from tip to tip of the fins on the body tube. So I cut out the fiber glass to fit from fin to fin and epoxied the glass to the fins. With those cured after a few hours I cut away the excess and let them finish curing over night. I also placed epoxy on the both inner edges of both body tubes to help keep the paper from peeling up when inserting the nose cone and body tube for the fin can. Once it dried I sanded it down smooth and it worked great.
