Fixin's

I have some rockets I have parts or kits for that I haven't yet built, and I almost laid into one of those this evening. But there was rocket doctoring to do.



More than I got done, in fact. But I re-glued Floyd's loose fin. I used masking tape to clamp it back in place and erred on the side of more epoxy rather than less. Flying on E-30's, Floyd endures more than the average Max Q for a Lobster Fleet craft.

Also, Dr. Tommy, the D-Region Tomahawk had a close call last launch. On a D12-5, he almost lawn-darted. A weak D12 as it turned out, and a long five second delay, and he came about twenty feet form eating high speed dirt before the parachute deployed.



The flight up had been less than stable, and as I inspected the rocket I found the red fin was so loose it probably almost came off in flight. I used plastic cement to bind it to the plastic fin can, as Estes instructs, but apparently there's plastic cement and then there's plastic cement. The theory is it melts the plastic, creating a weld that's stronger than the constituent parts. But theory doesn't hold fins on.



So I used epoxy this time. Plenty of it. The rocket isn't as pretty for it, but I doubt these fins are going to wiggle free without breaking.