Ye Olde Rocket Forum - View Single Post - "Friendship 7" 50th Anniversary Dr. Zooch Mercury Atlas build...

SO, now we're ready to start bringing the booster together...

First we have to notch the BT-60 for the motor mount, as per the instructions. Use the marking tool on the wrap sheet, sort of a "bullseye", and center the tube over it, and carefully transfer the four arrow marks to the tube to indicate where the cuts should be made. Using an angle, make four vertical lines on the tube along these arrow marks. Next, connect the two adjacent lines 1-5/8 inch up from the bottom of the tube, defining the "rectangle" of material that will be cut out of the wall of the tube, to allow the spoof engine tubes sticking out the side of the motor mount to clear main body tube. Use a sharp hobby knife to carefully cut these away. Test fit the motor mount in the body tube DRY-- NO GLUE, to ensure that everything slides together properly and smoothly and to find the best fit. I found rotating the motor mount resulted in a slightly better fit for some reason... I also had to sand the frontmost centering ring a bit too to slide into the tube a bit easier at the top of the notch cuts on the main body tube. When you're satisfied with the fit, apply white glue inside the body tube aft end and insert the motor mount, and push it forwards until the spoof engine tubes seat against the bottom of the cut notches...

Now we'll glue on the pod fairing covers. Since the motor hook is centered between the nozzles, and should look better on the pad on the "back" of the rocket, a quick check in my "Rockets of the World" book showed that the longer fairing should be on the right hand side with the "front" of the booster toward you (considering the side with the LOX line to be the "front"... the capsule window and hatch should be aligned with the long fairing in this position). Anyway, so with the motor hook down, I put the long fairing on the right hand side of the rocket, and the short fairing on the left hand side. I grabbed an angle out of the toolbox and extended a line on either side of the "spoof engine tubes" sticking out the sides of the motor mounts so I could align the fairings vertically. Test fit everything, outline the forward tips lightly with a pencil (to ensure you don't mix them up as to which fairing goes on which side if you're trying to keep the motor hook in "back") and then apply a healthy even layer of white glue to the tube, and then press the fairings in place, aligning them vertically with the rocket body tube, with the flat end against the top ends of the "spoof tubes". Slap some rubber bands on there to keep everything tight while the glue dries.

Next, we'll cut the aft booster engine fairings from the wrap sheet... again using a sharp hobby knife, a straightedge on the long straight sections, and a steady hand on the short straight and curved parts... set them aside. You'll also need to cut the "heat shield templates" out of the wrap sheet-- they're these little 'fingernail clipping' looking dilly-oh's... and glue them down in the corner of the balsa sheet we've been whittling parts off of. These will be assembled later into the tapered aft booster engine nacelle fairings.

Now, I'm gonna jump around a bit... we're at that part of the build where following the instructions usually means you do one thing and wait hours to overnight before you can do the next step, so it just makes sense to do a little "parallel development" (in NASA parlance) here to speed up the process a bit. While the glue is drying on the fingernail bits, I started working on the capsule. First we cut the "Friendship 7" (or whatever your favorite Mercury mission was... there's even a "generic capsule" that could serve as Deke's "Delta 7" that he never got to fly because he was grounded with a heart arrhythmia... at any rate, cut the capsule wrap of your choice from the wrap sheet, curl it around and glue it up into a conical shape. Be aware that there is no glue tabs marked on the wraps, so be sure you cut a little extra on the edges, or conversely you can also cut a small strip off the edge of the wrap sheet and use it for a butt-splice connection, connecting the two edges of the capsule wrap into a conical piece. Clamp it securely and set it aside to dry.

Cut the small recovery compartment cylinder strip from the sheet, carefully roll it into a circle, and glue the ends together. Once dry, grab the balsa capsule core (nosecone) from the kit and carefully test fit the cylindrical recovery section on the upper end... if it doesn't fit, carefully sand the balsa down a bit until it fits smoothly. The capsule "bell" wrap should be try by now-- test fit it as well. When everything fits smoothly, apply white glue to the conical part of the balsa nosecone, and slide the capsule "bell" over it, tugging and pressing it gently but snugly down into place. Test fit the recovery cylinder again, and if everything's cool, apply a thin layer of white glue to the balsa cone, align the seam in the paper recovery compartment with the seam in the lower "bell", and gently slide the cylinder over the top of the nosecone, and press it down gently til it seats on the lower section of the capsule. Gingerly remove any glue that seeps out without smearing it and making a mess. Apply some wood filler (I used white glue myself) to the top of the balsa capsule (to cover the raggedy end grain of the balsa cone) and set it aside to dry. Your capsule should now look something like this...

Now, cut the small antenna canister from the wrap sheet-- it's a small conical part. Gingerly apply glue to the tab, roll it to shape, and glue the ends together to form a tiny truncated cone. This is where the smooth-jawed hemostats REALLY come in handy! Clamp it up and set it aside to dry... Cut the TINY nose fairing from the wrap sheet-- it's the tiny "Pac-Man" looking thing kinda off to one side by itself near the antenna can you cut out before... (don't confuse it with the three conical LES tower nozzles set to one side nearby!) Cut the "lil' Pac Man" out and gingerly roll it over a pencil point to put a little curl in it, apply a daub of white glue to the tiny little glue tab, and roll it to it's conical shape, and clamp it together to dry with a hemostat, and set them aside to dry...

Later! OL JR