|
|
|
Spring Break 2008 had just started for my kids when my 13 year-old son Stefan
came to me with a drawing he had made of a rocket. He was very excited to
build it, and wanted to get started right away. (By way of some background,
Stefan is an extremely active kid who is off running the minute his feet hit
the floor in the morning. He is consumed with football, baseball, hoops,
frisbee — ao for me to get his attention long enough to finish a
sentence is a big deal, let alone a high-power rocket.) So I jumped on it.
Stefan's drawing showed a rocket that was pretty stout. I found a 22-inch
length of 4-inch phenolic tubing that Stefan thought looked perfect. We
brainstormed on nose cones for a bit, and when I showed him the molds I'd made
for the 4-inch SS1 his eyes lit up. This would be a truly 'scratch' scratch
build.
|
|
|
I took some photos of Stefan using these molds to fabricate some fiberglass
nose and tail cones, but I somehow deleted them (along with a few others.
Trust me, you are not as disappointed as I am.)
|
|
We agreed that the pointy cone would serve as a great nose cone and the blunt
cone would be the tail cone. (They are arranged the opposite way on the SS1.
It's fin to use the old cones in a new way!
|
|
|
While the cones were curing in the molds, we fired up the computer to design
the rocket on RockSim. Here is the 2D image of the rocket. We optimized the
flight weight for maximum altitude, so we added about 22 ounces of ballast to
the nose.
|
Stefan is excited to have a rocket that he can fly on a wide range of motors.
This one will be able to fly on motors as small as a G80 or as large as a J350!
|
|
|
|
Here is a sure sign that your boy is becoming a man; you walk out into the
garage to find him filling the seams in the phenolic tube with spackle...
|
...and then sanding sanding the tube perfectly smooth. all without being
prompted! That really impressed ol' dad, let me tell you.
|
|
Here is Stefan holding the results of his handiwork. There is a big leap from
the last photos to this one — cutting and sanding the fins, cutting the
fin slots, installing the fins, etc., and I wish that I still had the photos of
the boy doing all that work. Unfortunately none of those pictures were still
on the camera when I went to post them. Nuts.
|
|
|
|
After Stefan decided that the name of the rocket should be 'Reaper', we
searched the Inter-Webs and found this sick tribal-looking sketch.
Stefan really, really thought this was cool. Skulls usually are.
|
We arranged the drawings in PowerPoint and drew up a couple of Reaper titles.
Then we printed the decals using a laser printer and decal paper from
DecalPaper.com.
|
|
Stefan wanted the paint to transition from white at the nose to black at the
aft. We painted the rocket with white epoxy enamel and then started at the
back with black and tried to blend it in. It wasn't the exact effect that
Stefan had envisioned, but after looking at it a while he decided it was pretty
cool. Sort of like the Grim Reaper hovering above a dark mist.
Then Stefan and I applied the decals and the result is the beauty you see
here. The final step is to apply clear coat over the whole rocket, which will
protect the decal and add some shine to the dull areas where the black blends
into the white.
|