Centuri X-24 skins

[the mole]

Chris Michielssen is doing a build of the Centuri X-24 Bug.

I have just finished a couple new skins for the X-24. Feel free to use them.
If anyone does a repaint of the X-24 skins, please post them in this thread
so they can be located in one place.

FIND CORRECTED SKINS IN POST #7

[Gus]

Very nice! Thanks.

[neil_w]

Nice! Have you built one with the skins to see what the whole thing looks like?

Do you have two canopies in there just for choice?

[the mole]

No I haven't built with them yet, but I plan On doing so as soon as I get some
110 card stock. I just drew them up last week when I was trap inside by a couple rainy days.

Have another idea for a repaint in mind. That's for the next rainy day.

[the mole]

Had some time today. Here is my X-24X-15.
This one will take a little black ink out of your system.

Will start to build these this week.

Enjoy.

FIND CORRECTED SKINS IN POST #7

[GlenP]

Those designs are really cool. I was thinking that the HL-20 would be another good inspiration for a color scheme.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HL-20_Personnel_Launch_System

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HL20_mockup.jpeg

[the mole]

Over the last couple days I have built the X-24 with my skins.
After building them I found a couple mistakes I made in the original drawings.
I have corrected the mistakes, and have posted the corrected ones below.

[GlenP]

I just built one with your NASA skins, very cool design. I added a lug to the central engine mount tube and made the nose from cardstock. The little metallic strip of paper is just a doubler for decoration and to cover up a little pucker from the glue joint at the former. Next time I might try gluing a doubler strip on the inside before glueing the former in place.

Thanks for the cool skins!

[the mole]

Wow! GlenP, you have done an outstanding job with my skin.
Thanks for taking the time to build it. Once again you have done a good job.
I like the look of the lunch lug sticking out under the cockpit.
I'll try to pop into this thread every so offing, and post a new X-24 skin.
So far these three were easy to come up with. Now it's a little harder to come up with new skin ideas.
Would like to get some ideas from anyone out there. Pictures would help.

[GlenP]

I like the NASA Meatball on those templates. The old HL-20 mock up has the retired NASA Worm and looks more like a Shuttle color scheme (see the wiki link above)

For a retro-style you could try a color scheme inspired by the US Army Air Forces Trainer, that classic airplane the PT-19, could maybe even put two open-cockpit windscreens on it... hmm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_PT-19

[naslrogues]

The skins are great! Any new ones in the works?

[the mole]

GlenP,
That's a good suggestion the PT-19 color scheme. I might give it a shot. Thanks.

Naslrogues,
Nothing in the works for now. I'm looking forward to the new ESTES Shuttle kit.
I'm going to start work on it when I get my hands on one. I'm waiting for AC Supply to get them in stock. I'm looking for them to get them in stock at the end of this week or next.

I'll stop in here once in a while, and drop a new skin in.

[GlenP]

my other idea is to paint the interior of the exposed shroud surface with High-Temp BBQ paint to protect the paper from the engine plume heat, Rustoleum makes a black and a metallic silver. The metallic silver looks pretty cool.

[Joe Wooten]

my other idea is to paint the interior of the exposed shroud surface with High-Temp BBQ paint to protect the paper from the engine plume heat, Rustoleum makes a black and a metallic silver. The metallic silver looks pretty cool.

That is a great idea. I had to retire my X-24 after about 10 flights because of charring......

[neil_w]

Those new skins look great, I think the black one is my favorite. I gotta try building one of these guys at some point.

[burkefj]

Agreed, those look really nice!

[GlenP]

For my X-24 builds I made the nose cone and engine tube from cardstock. I attempted to make a blank artwork-free outilne template for these so you can print up this additional page and make your own if you don't have any of those handy and can't wait for mail order to arrive. If you haven't built a cardstock cone before, take a look at the nose cone templates and instructions from Eric Truax here:
https://rocketry.wordpress.com/ultimate-paper-rocket-guide/paper-rocket-partial-builds/

Alternately, you could cut the engine tube template a little longer, and instead of rolling it around an 18mm engine, you could first wrap a length of streamer around the engine, then make a custom sized tube of slightly wider diameter that will fit the streamer and engine, if your local field does not allow engine tubes to be ejected without a recovery device.

(updated PDF, the 1" reference square was not the right size)

after making this nose cone, I realized I measured something wrong, it just does not look right, I will update the template with a better looking nose. Here are some pictures of the build process. Don't attach the nose to the body tube until after the body tube and former has been installed in the main body shroud. My pictures got re-ordered, oh well, you get the idea.

(updated PDF with better shaped nose cone)

[GlenP]

some more pictures from the Page 3 parts to complete an X-24, the build is the old nose, the finished X24 has the new nose, pdf template update pending... I ran out of white paper, so I printed this one on yellow. Rolling your own cardstock nose cone is just like making the X-24 body shroud cone, just a little smaller.

[the mole]

Thanks GlenP for going through the steps for building the nose cone.
I'll have to try this sometime. Looks good.
Thanks again.

[GlenP]

Thanks for the cool X-24 skins! I hope this Page 3 helps those who want to complete the kits totally out of cardstock. I revised the PDF in the original post above.

This latest yellow model also has a lug on the internal body tube, but it is cut to conform to the body shroud, looks pretty decent. You can roll the launch lugs as well, if you are so inclined, but that is left as an exercise for the reader.

After doing a couple of these cones/tubes for the X-24 in a haphazard fashion, I thought I would make the effort to make some measurements and build a printable template to make them more consistent. While not a reproduction of the original nose cone, it sort of matches the slope of the body tube cone and just looks about right. I am not a cardstock expert by any means, but have kind of gotten hooked thanks to the gateway model: the Bob Harrington mini Satellite Interceptor, and have built some of the Project Paper models on TRF and started making some of my own, learning by trial and error. Cardstock paper and glue sticks are cheap enough for experimenting.

[GlenP]

That is a great idea. I had to retire my X-24 after about 10 flights because of charring......

I got that idea from the Augie II (http://www.spacemodeling.org/jimz/eirp_28.htm), I haven't built one of those yet, but they suggest painting the inside of the augmenter tube with Al high heat resistant paint.

http://www.spacemodeling.org/jimz/eirp_28.htm

I hope to launch one of my X-24 builds soon, I can get a pretty decent hand-toss glide, hopefully it will not go too far.

[GlenP]

Flew this one a couple of times today, it flew great, kind of came in nose heavy, but made a soft enough landing. Really fun flier.