The busy month of May.

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#1 The busy month of May.

Post by Commander »

The Starport has been really bouncing this past month. Not in much that visitors could tell, unfortunately, but the behind the scenes stuff is looking interesting.

The Services section sent out a couple of orders for the screen printed decals. and have received some feedback on them which will get posted as soon as I get some time to breathe. Speaking of which, the rocket bunker got a new air purifier and a dehumidifier from the main basement area which got a new larger dehumidifier to help control the dampness down stairs. This makes it more comfortable and easier to experiment with printing and painting and other things.

Services also finally got a duplicator for the lathe. Now to make the templates for the nose cones for the designs and of course waste a couple hundred dollars on balsa getting the learning curve above good enough.

Again speaking of, in this case a couple hundred dollars, Design Bureau has been using a trail copy of a CAD program to assist another rocketry company in creating fin patterns for some interesting upscales. Now we just have to determine if shelling out five hundred dollars for the license would be worth it (it would in the long run, but how often can the economically depressed think in terms of the long run?)

We were discussing the possibility of doing some vacuum forming of some Estes Shuttle parts with another individual, but that project has been shelved for the time being at least.

Other projects included replacing the Acurite weather station in the back yard and upgrading to a station that sends the data to the internet so I can tell the humidity and temperature of the Rocket Bunker while I am downtown working the day job. The new station came with two additional sensors so that I can place them in the Bunker, in the upstairs bedroom or wherever. The old station's anemometer cups somehow broke off, (I wouldn't put it pass the squirrels), put a replacement part is being shipped and then I will have two stations. So much weather information a simple city lot has never had. Even so, the idea is to be able to visit club launches some day and be able to set up the weather stations to give people launching that day accurate on site data.

In keeping with that theme, (visiting club launches and giving assistance) two reflex holographic gun sites are on they're way to the Starport. Not to shoot down any rockets, but to be used in place of the old fashioned theodolites once used to determine rocket elevations. I hope to have a prototype built and tested before the end of the summer.

So, if I am not posting as frequently as normal, please try and understand and don't think we are fading away.

Bernie
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luke strawwalker
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#2 Re: The busy month of May.

Post by luke strawwalker »

Cool... staying REAL busy it seems...

The weather station is a GREAT idea... I should run that past our club Prez since he's getting "matching funds" or whatever from NAR for safety equipment, like fence crossing ladders and stuff. They're pretty well set for equipment otherwise; a weather station would be a great addition to the club's site, and I might chip in half since it'd be here on the farm... That way ANYBODY could look up current conditions at the launch site (other end of the farm) anytime they wanted to via internet.

Got a question for you... I'm kinda into the TLP kits (which of course don't come with decals) and I'm doing some "cockroach scale" rockets of my own (Saturn V to be precise, larger than Dr. Zooch's "ant scale" Saturn V; mine is a BT-80 tube for the S-IC and S-II stages, and I have parts and plan to build a Saturn C-8 Nova at some point, among other things, in 1:152 (roughly) scale (semi-scale, anyway). Would you be interested in making some "generic" decals in that scale, say US flags and "USA" and "UNITED STATES" (vertically arranged of course, in black and red ink) for something like that, and maybe some rather generic lettering (since the military now requires some sort of fee or something for their logo that WE TAXPAYERS pay for, if that applies to decals; may only apply to complete kits, not sure... At any rate, merely printing decals that have the letters U, S, A, R, M, Y, A, F, N, A, V, Y , etc would allow one to "cut-n-paste" the decals in any arrangement they wanted...) Any thoughts on that?

Vacuforming would be neat... What's the thickest material you'd want to mess with? I've been thinking about ways to "mass produce" things like the S-II/S-IVB transition on a Saturn V in ~1:152 semi-scale, for a BT-80 (S-IC/S-II) to BT-60 (S-IVB) Saturn V. Makes a REALLY nice size kit-- not as huge as the Estes or Apogee kits, but not as "dinky" as the BT-60/BT-52? "semi-scale" Saturn V's... With a proper mold, the corrugations could be pulled into a transition "skin" via vacuforming, which could then be assembled over a regular paper tube coupler type transition (much like constructing a paper transition-- my prototype used a turned pink house sheet foam insulation "buck" for the transition with coupler tubing glued over the ends, and a hand-scribed (for the corrugations) paper transition cone glued over the outside of the foam-- sturdy piece but difficult to replicate. Vacuforming would also be IDEAL for making the engine fairings on the tail end of a Saturn V that size... F-1's too for that matter... 4 on each Saturn V, 8 on a C-8 Nova, and 2 on the F-1 LRB's and for things like the F-1 powered "First Lunar Outpost" rocket, which would also be very impressive at this scale without being enormous and requiring huge motors... (my prototype uses "Zooch style" triangular tube sections skinned with hand-embossed paper corrugations (since they come to a point and aren't "parallel") but they're a pain to make "in bulk" and must be resectioned with a sharp hobby knife and reshaped via sanding to fit different tube sizes, like the BT-60 for the LRB's (first stage of the Saturn I-F... Vacuforming would make it easy once molds were made).

Anyway, just tossing out ideas. Be interested to hear your opinions...

Later! OL J R :)
My MUNIFICENCE is BOUNDLESS, Mr. Bond...
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#3 Re: The busy month of May.

Post by Commander »

The weather station is a GREAT idea... I should run that past our club Prez since he's getting "matching funds" or whatever from NAR for safety equipment, like fence crossing ladders and stuff. They're pretty well set for equipment otherwise; a weather station would be a great addition to the club's site, and I might chip in half since it'd be here on the farm... That way ANYBODY could look up current conditions at the launch site (other end of the farm) anytime they wanted to via internet.
If I may, I suggestAcuRite Weather Stations. I've had one of their 5 in 1 sensors for the past 4 years or so. They measure Wind speed and direction, Humidity, Temperature, Barometric Pressure and Rain Fall. To make it accessible on the internet, you need a special receiver which connects to your internet router. The Sensor unit can be placed up to 300' away IIRC. The great thing is once you have the basics, you can add additional sensor units.

As to the decals, the cut and paste idea for letters would be too much of a hassle for most people. They're looking to decals to make things way easier, but the rest is doable.

I haven't done too much experimenting with the vacuum forming yet, just the canopy for Ted for his Renegade. I'm trying to get a few other projects moving along, unless of course I get a paying customer. :mrgreen:

Stay Tuned
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#4 Re: The busy month of May.

Post by Commander »

Just got the reflex sites today, :D now to come up with a theodolite contraption to use them. 8-)
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#5 Re: The busy month of May.

Post by Commander »

So this looks like June is going to be just as busy. On top of other self inflicted additions to the to-do list, I have decided that the stand for the tabletop router I have isn't good enough, especially with the duplicator attached. The duplicator makes the router top heavy, so now I have to anchor it.
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