It Was Not a Rocket, It Was a Rocket Lobster!

It's been well over a month since my box of goodies came, and I'm only the past week or so getting around to playing with it.



I've been repairing Hellboy and Otis, which amounts to replacing most of their body tubes, filling in the copious gaps with wood filler and sanding. Filling some more and sanding. Then I put on a coat of alcohol-thinned epoxy and microballons, but I screwed that up. A day later, it was still gummy. Meaning I either got carried away with the alcohol (I guessed at how much to dribble in), or didn't get enough hardener in the resin. Or both.



So I mixed up some un-thinned finishing resin (it's a little thinner to begin with) and recoated. I'll have some serious sanding to do after, both to smooth things out and to cut weight.

Basically, I'm tired to envying the awesome paint jobs guys like Dave 'Epoxy & Microballoons' Bucher* put on their rockets. I always short the surface prep because it's such drudgery and because I can't wait to fly the rocket. But I figure if I'm going to the trouble to rebuild these guys, I want people to not believe that this is the 'before' picture.



I've also been building Claude the Impaler. I had some laser cut G10 fins made for the Inscrutable Hulk and I love them. They're thin, so there's less drag, and they are fairly light but wicked strong.



However, on the claw fins, I've overextended the material in an obvious way. This rocket will only fly with a very, very big parachute and even then I won't be surprised if the fins start breaking right away. But since I have the fins, I figured I'd use them. If I'm right that they're too flimsy, I may try birch plywood with the same shape. Maybe tweak the design to make it a bit more robust, too. The reason the G10 is so thin is that's the thickest BMS's lasers can work with. Apparently being much, much harder to cut than wood since they go all the way to 5/32" birch plywood but the G10 stops at something like 1/16".



But I'm sure that like with Mr. Creosote, once I have a lobster rocket in the fleet, I won't want to live without it. When the first Mr. Creosote bit it, I had the replacement built straight away.



I've also been at the drawing board a bit. Not sure when I'll get this built. I don't have all the stuff to make it, nor the dough to purchase the stuff. Plus, once built, it's an expensive launch since it uses five motors altogether. It's a combination of parallel and series staging that comes near maxing out the NAR limits for total propellant weight. Just laminating the hooks and sanding them to the curves of the body tubes alone is a daunting project.



Or maybe I could scale it back. Make it one that uses 18mm motors. But somehow, less is not more with a design like this.


*Dave is a true character. And I've had conversations with him where, I swear, it's like the Dad from My Big Fat Greek Wedding and his Windex, except it's epoxy & microballoons that will fix everything from a dinged fin to the common cold.