Has anyone used this aerosleeves for fiberglassing the airframe?

That be me too. I still have busted up rockets from 9 years ago I have yet to fix :| Hell, I still have my unfinished supposedly(at the time) L1 rocket I never even finished building

Ted Novak TRA#5512 IEAS#75

I just like flying. That's why I've not built much these past few years apart from new avionics rigs to fly in the same airframes. I'm held back on most of my projects by a lack of machining facilities though.

My biggest hate is profiling fins. Every single damn time I do this, I end up with a nasty cut on one of my fingers from the knife edge of the fin.

Chris

I haven't built anything in a while. 2 kids eat up a lot of time.

'nuther reason not to use G10 ;-)

Plywood, 1 half round router bit and "viola"!

10 bonus points for whoever recognizes that reference.

I guess some people would just prefer to drive Hyundai's than something a little stronger. It is true that you don't need extra strength to get from point A to point B, but that doesn't mean you'll see me in a Yugo.

People prefer stronger automobiles for obvious reasons. I prefer stronger rockets for similar reasons. I remember an ejection charge blowing the side out of a PML Endeavor. I've broke fins on landing. I've had slapping nosecones cave body tubes in. I started glassing them and all of these problems vanished.

I don't stop with fiberglassing either. I finish my rockets in professional-grade, automotive urethane finishes with acrylic hardener added. No more paint flaking off, chipping, or other small annoyances. If you hardened the entire assembly you can focus on flying and not repair. If I am going to be doing construction, I want it to be on a new rocket.

Fortunately, I am not the only one that feels this way.

Amen, Brother! You preach it!

My experience has been that LOC kits are some of the longest lasting in the industry.

Dan Schneider?

If their phenolic formula hasn't changed, I think that is the worst choice. I have never seen a LOC kit have an ejection charge blow the side out of the airframe. I have however had that happen in an Endeavor.

Giant Leap is a good choice for kits...

Not to mention avoiding the need to deal with the tubing spiral line. At best, with an un-glassed LOC tube, you need to take your thumbnail and press inward on the external spiral groove, even breaking it if necessary, and then fill it in. I have even taken CA and wicked it into this seam. Some people use spot putty, some just pile on the primer.

But even so, after a few flights, the spiral seam will be smiling back at you again rather profoundly. It'll look quite worn shortly enough, though, when it's joined by a few dents and dings.

I've never seen this happen once in the last 6 years, in any material, and I for one use large ejection charges. 2g of BP in 300mm of 54mm tube for instance. I have one particular airframe I've done this at least 30 times in with no damage whatsoever. That's with shear pins too.

You think? If I were going to buy fibreglass tube, the last thing I'd buy is Giant Leap. It might be fine for a few flights but as soon as you ding the end of the tube, or put a hole through it to access your altimeter, cracks start to propagate along the laminations because it's spiral wound, not convolute wound. We did one flight on a fairly easy-going M motor (a M1400 skidmark), and had a pretty easy landing, and the tube was trashed. Just twisting it in difference directions at each end made it come apart in your hands. Absolutely awful stuff.

Chris

You're supposed to do something with the spiral?

Chris

Well....... I glass them so when they bounce around in the back of the car while driving the dirt roads leading to the launch field I know they are still flyable. I glass them so when the fall over in the shed they are still flyable. I glass them so when the parachute drags it around the field on a breezy day they are still flyable. I glass them so I don't have to handle them like tissue paper to keep them flyable. I glass them so when I drop a tool on them they are still flyable. I glass them so when something goes wrong in the pits 5 minute expoxy will keep it flyable. I glass them so when someone steps on them by accident they are still flyable.

I'll just keep glassing them. ;-)

Chuck

Perhaps 'training' fins are in order? ;-)

Chuck

I've seriously thought about getting some of those chainmail gloves they use when gutting fish.

Chris

Ok Ok Ok................ I ended up going with the Giant Leap sock and aeropoxy resin and 3 oz cloth for the fins. I checked into the giant leap sock and the prices were not too bad and the choice seemed clear. Also, it had proven results on Roger's EZI65. It seems that the majority of people in this forum feel that glassing offers some protection, and I too do not enjoy repairing rockets. Once it's built, I want it to stay built so that I can move on to another project eventually. I'll experiment on my own a little and if anyone's interested I'll post some results and maybe some picts. If this is a dumb thing to do as some suggest, I guess I'll find out on my own. Roger if I may; what cloth did you finish with? Some sites suggest a fiberglass veil. How did you fill in the weave for finishing and what was the final weight of your rocket?

For any> > What I'm not sure of is whether aerosleeves is the way to go.

SuperFil lightweight epoxy filler is about the best there is. It's not very expensive and very good to work with too.

Chris

I used a single layer of 2oz. cloth on top of the sock. I used Kilz spray primer, applying several coats and sanding between each coat. I painted the rocket with color-changing paint which requires many coats. Then I finished with a layer of acrylic car wax. So there are many layers of paint on the rocket. I probably spent $100 just on primer and paint. It looked nice for a little while, but the wax didn't protect the paint as well as I had hoped.

With the fiberglassing and the other upgrades I made, the rocket weighs about 4.5 pounds. On an H120 and H165 motors, it flew about 600 feet. Next month I may try it on an I200 if it's a calm day. Rocksim says it should go about 2000 feet on the I200. I'm working on adding dual-deployment for it, but not sure if it'll be ready next month, so I'll hope for no wind. I don't like walking miles to recover my rockets. :-)

While building my EZI-65, I referred often to the Rocketry Online article at

It's an excellent tutorial.

Photos and video of my Level 1 Certification flight using the EZI-65 are on my web site at:

The onboard-camera footage in the video is faked (it's actually from an earlier Oracle flight), but I've atoned for my sins by actually flying a digital camcorder on my EZI-65 last Saturday. I'm very pleased with the results. See:

Good luck with your project!

-- Roger