Full assembly of the motor mount is a bit tedious, but not too bad. Lots of nut spinning. A cordless drill makes it very easy after the first one is set, just get the nuts in the sections they need to be in and let the drill do the work. Preliminary fits look good, inside the air frame and out.

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unstable by design

The epoxy is flowing. This morning I tackled a couple menial jobs for the AV bay and motor mount. Specifically, permanently attaching the vent band to the bay, and tacking the motor tube to the rest of the assembly. First, a word from our sponsors...

I'm using Rocketpoxy exclusively for this build, made by Glenmarc Industries. Located in Chicago, they are a semi-local company, who's proprietor is a rocket nut as well. He developed this product about a year ago specifically for rocketry. The epoxy I'm using now was given to me free of charge to try out, so technically Glenmarc is a sponsor, and will be recognized as such.

I'll admit that that the name sounded a bit "short-bus" to me at first, but it's grown on me. The epoxy is wonderful stuff, very easy going. The resin to hardener ratio is one-to-one, and does not seem to care if you're off a bit - no weighing of parts required. It spreads and fillets nicely, and sands relatively easy too. The kits come with dye to color it black, and it's easy on the nose. It has virtually no odor at all, and is non-toxic.

K, back to business. I dyed the epoxy I used this morning black because a certain leaker in the house reminded me that a rocket of hers needed some work as well. It would be a little easier to see in it's natural color of tan, but today it is not to be. Prepping of the parts involved light sanding and light cross hatching to get a better mechanical bond. All parts were then wiped clean with denatured alcohol and bonded. The AV bay band was a bit tough to get into position, due to the very tight space between parts. after getting it as close as I could by hands, I put the payload tube on and used my whole body and a wall to get it where it needed to be, OOFDAA!

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unstable by design

AV bay:

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The motor mount tube has been floating up to this point, and needs to be set in place to proceed. I just threw a couple small fillets in the space between the fin sets to accomplish this. Oh yeah, I did some other fillets too...

Forgot to mention last task of yesterday. I notched the fore centering ring to accept the Y harness for the booster. Weighing the options before hand, I came to the conclusion that there is no way I'll ever be able to get down there to attach anything to U bolts, so a Y harness is the way I'll go. Dremel made this easy, I'm going to work on the harness now.

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I think I spy a LiL Rascal in those pics.

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Russ
Woosh NAR #558

Yeah.... Now that I have a motor for it, guess I'll finish it for her.

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unstable by design

I made the Y harness to mount to the motor tube this morning, it consists of nine feet of 1" tubular nylon nine feet long. first step is to lay out it's location, making sure it will not interfere with the fins. Check. Next I roughed up the tube a bit and cleaned thoroughly with alcohol. Before goobing it up, I masked the area around it to ensure there would be no mess where the fins attach. After goobing, I covered it with more tape and smoothed it all out, working the epoxy into the TN. A few tape "clamps" and it's breaktime.

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With the finishing of the hidden fillets in the motor mount assembly, it is done! Woop. Unless of course Sather says otherwise... I did a little bit of work on the nose cone today as well, I can't go much further until my hardware that is to arrive today gets here. I sliced a piece of the coupler off to act as a stop for the removable shoulder, and epoxied it into place.

The messy fillets you see here are Rocket Poxy in it's natural color, btw.

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unstable by design

Gotta love Mcmaster-Carr - ordered Wednesday, arrived Thursday. Doesn't get any better than that! The size of this nose cone (length specifically) made assembly a bit different. Usually when you're running a rod from tip to tail, you put your parts together and cut a piece of rod to suit . For this cone, the standard three foot length of rod is too short to span the entire length - so the shoulder bulkhead must be located in the shoulder in relation to the rod length. No big deal, just a little different. After securing the rod to the tip, the bulkhead and associated nuts and washers were put into place, with a forged eye nut at the end for shock cord attachment. After all this was set up where it needed to be, the coupler tube was slid into place and epoxied to the bulkhead. After the epoxy sets, I'll take it apart and fillet the other side.

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unstable by design

Wait, a 3' rod is too short for just the nose cone? Yowza!

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Paul
If we weren't all crazy, we would go insane - Jimmy Buffett
NAR #87246 www.wooshrocketry.org