Ye Olde Rocket Forum - View Single Post

Comrades:

Shhhh . . . don't tell her, I got another Sandhawk to rescue.

Here's the payload bay. It was split along both long seams , but not at either end. The nose cone was glued on, but strangely offset. The original bayonet mount would have had the seams on the nose line up with the seams on the bay. There was a large crack laterally near the nose starting at one seam and another, smaller one starting from the opposite seam. Had they connected, this would have been much more difficult. Also, there is a fairly large dent that looks like someone melted the plastic somehow.

Using Plastruct Plastic Weld (MEK), I glued the cracks first and then tackled the long seams. One side I squeezed together but the other side I shimmed with a strip of styrene. You can see the shim as a thin white line in the picture. I probably should have used a thicker piece.

I'm thinking of filling the dent with slow CyA and sanding before it gets super hard. Also there does not appear to be any way around rescribing the panel lines. I was able to locate the antenna spots and drill them out, but without access through the nose, I'll have to come up with some other way to secure them rather than the usual epoxy from inside.

This is a part of a very large lot I was able to obtain. They were all built between 1970 and 1976. The builds are straight but the finishes are rough, being mostly dope. There was lots of paperwork and a whole bunch of unfired engines, including 18mm shorties, dated as far back as 1968. The D powered rockets in some cases had engines and wadding installed like they've been waiting for launch for 44 years. The engines were all stamped 1976.

If I gotta stay home, I'm gonna work on some of this stuff.