And then I saw Google had their page done up in a tribute to NASA. And don't forget, I spotted the TWA Moonliner on their headquarters building in the Crossroads district. Hmmm.
Originally, I was taking a half day off to take Em to the doctor. But by the time I got her back to her mother's house, it was noon. And I had an appointment at the crack house,* so I would have to leave work on time. Meaning I'd drive an hour and a half to two hours in order to work three and a half.
With gas being what it is, I decided to call in and find out how desperately I was needed. It could have been desperately, Monday was insane. With the August 5th primary coming up, all these politicians are trying to do last-minute hit-pieces. Their idea is to get them in the mail so they arrive very close to the election. Fresh in the voter's minds and without time for the guy being 'hit' to do much in the way of hitting back.
Personally, I think it's kind of cute, all these wildly irresponsible political mailers. They're pretty much true, but they'd pretty much be true if you swapped the name of the target with the name of the 'paid for by.' In any case, it meant that Monday was filled to overflowing with rush jobs. Someone should create preprinted hit-pieces like those legal documents you can buy. Just fill out the name of your opponent and the date of the election and you're good to hit the mail house.
But anyway, the answer turned out to be not that desperately. All the hit pieces are on the press or already on the way to the mailing houses. So I took the second half of the day off as well.
And filled it by playing Vectoids.
Kidding.
Actually, I had this idea I'd cash in on the relatively cool weather and finally mow my lawn. But first I'd do just one or two things with my latest rocket projects.
Next time I looked at the clock, it was 15 minutes until my chiropractic appointment.
I just finished listening to Lawrence Block's 'Hit Parade,' a mediocre novel about a stamp-collecting hired killer. There's some discussion in there about what the hobby provides, which is absorption. While he's working with his stamps the world just ceases to be. I guess it's true of all hobbies. I can lose an afternoon in the guitar, building rockets, making beer. But not in mowing the lawn.
I did mow the worst of it between the appointment and the beginning of the rains.
But mainly today I built rockets. Fitting, I suppose, given it's the 50th anniversary of NASA.
I've been experimenting with finishing resin, coated all of Curtis the Caveman (the Rock-It kit, Em came up with that name) with resin. Also did the bottom half of Hulk that way. And all of Hellboy.
I also experimented with fiberglass on Curtis the Caveman. I came really close to chucking the fins Estes provides and making my own through-the-wall fins. But what's the point of buying a kit if all I'm really going to use from it is the nose cone?
So since they're surface-glued fins, I knew epoxy was out. I just can't hold something in place long enough for epoxy to set. Well, the epoxy I buy anyway. I never seem to think of buying that five-minute kind.
I went with yellow wood glue, Titebond II. It's a very strong bonding agent for wood and paper, which is what you're doing with a model rocket. I roughed up the body tube where the fins joined to help that 'molecular' bond.
But then I also applied finishing resin to the whole body and fins and applied strips of 2oz fiberglass cloth to the fin joints and wetted them out as well. Should be tough enough.
On Hulk, the trick of putting epoxy putty strips around the motor tube and then inserting it and putting the fins in worked perfectly. I did the epoxy putty fillet trick on the body tube joint because with such thin fins and a thin body to boot, I figured it could use the stability.
I've been trying to improve my paint jobs and finishes on my rockets. Experimenting with sanding down the epoxy/finishing resin surfaces. I'm also thinking of experimenting with wet-sanding between coats of paint. Which I have mixed feelings about. When I see other modeler's rockets and they're slick and clean on close inspection, I kick myself for rushing through the finishing to get the rocket ready to fly. Then I lose a rocket in a tree and at least I didn't lose another three hours to the finer points of finishing...
The fiberglass cloth takes some getting used to. It wants to unravel for a start. And even with good shears, it's hard to cut it square. Then there's trying to get it where you want it, get it wetted out without wadding it up. It's kind of like papier-mâché with ridiculously flimsy paper that wants desperately to fray and wad up on you. It stinks worse than papier-mâché, but it's the same idea. The Z-Poxy finishing resin I use smells like corrosive tuna when you mix the resin and hardener.
I hope I haven't cooked up a couple more Floyds. He was the culmination of my first campaign to build 'low-and-slow' large rockets. He was so heavy I can only fly him with a NOTAM called in to the FAA; plus $15 or so a flight for the composite E-30 motor he requires.
But this time I didn't build with a huge stuffer tube inside. The reason I did that with Floyd was to cut the interior volume so the ejection charge would pop the nose cone. On Hellboy and Joker, I designed them to break at the middle instead of the nose cone so their internal volume is about the same as Mr. Creosote's. These aren't quite as long as Floyd, either. I think they'll both finish out about the same weight as Dr. Tommy, who is a gloriously low-and-slow cheap-black-powder-motor rocket.
The fit for Hellboy was too tight with the center coupler, so I ended up shaving it considerably. Then I worried that it wouldn't have the stiffness to do the job, so I ended up soaking it with finishing resin for insurance.
I feel like I'm in a rut building three BT-80 (2.6" diameter) rockets and a 3" diameter. I guess I balanced them out with those Micro-Maxx jobbies.
Hulk ends up being a quarter inch short of 45." Hellboy is about two inches shorter, but still substantial.
So anyway, happy birthday to NASA. Fifty years old and still wasting three bucks for every nickel's worth of space exploration. But your shit works and that's more than most can say...
I"m actually still debating the full name of the Hulk. The Inedible Hulk? Inscrutable Hulk? Maybe the Indebtable Hulk, a tribute to the high price of gasoline.
Originally the Big Daddy kit I'm building was going to be the Hulk and I was going to do a Joker rocket. I'll still probably do a Joker, but my ticket to see the Mighty Mighty BossTones came in the mail and I got a notion. I'll come back to that in my next Rocket Lobster post, I think.
*Crack house as in chiropractor.
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