LarryBAR99

Well, it's been an exciting year.  In addition to becoming a grandfather and going to half-time at work, I started the year learning to use my new 3D printe r .  I've used the printer to build rockets that are no longer available, learned how to combine my OpenRocket skills to 3D print novel or experimental rockets as well as printing things for my wife's gardening hobby, printing things inspired by her love of the Grateful Dead and printing things for my daughters.  For Halloween, some of our neighbors had rats (we think it's caused by the construction of Northwestern's new football/concert stadium) so we were asked by our Village not to put out real pumpkins.  As a solution, I 3D printed a Grateful Dead-themed Halloween pumpkin: I'm currently printing a (late) Grateful Dead-themed Christmas present for my wife.  This is my first four color 3D print, based upon what I learned printing multicolor coasters for Valentine's Day for my wife.  This involves pri...

OpenRocket simulation of my boosted Space Shuttle in flight Back when I was a BAR99 (born-again rocketeer in 1999) I built and launched an Estes #1284 Space Shuttle  in October 1999.  It was a complicated kit, with 54 steps.  The final rocket flew on a C6-3 to about 200 feet then the shuttle separated and sort of glided back to the ground, with the main rocket recovered with its own 18" parachute.  I flew it successfully a couple times and is still on my shelf.  Estes sold this kit from 1976 to 1998, and it's occasionally available now for exorbitant fees on eBay and elsewhere. I've been intrigued by something Apogee Components released a couple of years back that allows us to attach booster rockets to a main rocket that will fall away after from the main rocket after their booster engines are exhausted.  The original Estes Space Shuttle used the "boosters", which were glued on, to hold stabilizing fins that could be removed for display but provided noth...

In my excitement about working on the X-Wing  I forgot to describe my other project after fixing my printer nozzle.  I stumbled across Luna (from Destination Moon) model rocket by Works-Of-Claye on Thingiverse.  It's a small rocket, using a B or C engine, but the author admits he hadn't flown it at the time he shared the files.  I was attracted to this rocket because it was featured in the 1950 movie, Destination Moon  and I'm a sucker for retro looking SciFi rockets (like the Silver Comet ). I made some modifications to what the author's design, including adding a base to the nose cone in Thingiverse so it slipped into the body tube instead of having to clamp onto the top of the body tube.   Using Tinkercad to add a base for the nose cone I also modified the gcode for the lower body to pause and change filaments to print red tips on the fin pods .  I printed the baffle and a screw on 18 mm engine retainer using PETG for heat resistance. Printing the ...

I've had some printer problems in the past month where the print head kept moving but nothing was coming out.  After a lot of Googling and anguish I figured out I needed to replace the nozzle on the print head and how to do it when the filament was stuck and wouldn't retract.  Anyway, I'm back in business now. NCR X-Wing Fighter from 1996 Estes Catalog I came across a cool looking build thread on The Rocketry Forum entitled X-Wing Fighter Builds . The author, The Red Darren, was going through several different iterations of 3D printing and building a Star Wars X-Wing using balsa for the fins.  He's still perfecting his project, but shared a couple of STL files  which got me interested.  I printed the parts, which are meant to be assembled like shown here : I quickly recognized the solid parts would be hard to turn into a rocket.  I'd made a couple of attempts at using my printer's ability to print in "vase mode", where one thin continuous layer is prin...

My oldest daughter gave me an Estes Silver Comet for Father's Day 2000.  It was fun to build and fly and has always been one of my favorites, but hasn't been made since 2000.  It had a unique nose cone with the raised outline of a "cockpit".  The kit is no longer available and my rocket has a cracked balsa fin. Recently, I stumbled across a cool looking modified Silver Comet design with curved fins on RocketReviews.com and was inspired to try building a new version of this classic.  This makes the Silver Comet look more like a SciFi rocket from the 1950s or early 1960s.   RocketReviews had a RockSim simulation file available, which I was able to open using OpenRocket and export the fins for 3D printing.  Initially I was planning to print each fin separately, with fin tabs like the original balsa wood fins, but couldn't find a good model of the boat tail with slots so decided to use OpenRocket to generate the fins plus the boat tail.  To do this, ...

I decided to take a break from 3D printing everything (however, see note below) and try building a Pro Series II kit sold by Estes last year, the Great Goblin .  I comes with balsa fins in two parts that need to be glued together before using.  I've read numerous reports about these cracking on landing, etc., so decided this would be a good opportunity to learn how to coat fins with paper to make them less fragile.  Apogee Components has a great video about how to use normal printing paper and super glue to add a skin to strengthen the balsa fins. I cut out the fins and glued the two parts together for each fin, laying them on wax paper I covered the fins with a second layer of wax paper, then placed some objects on top to make sure they dried flat. The next day I photocopied two fins then cut out the paper fins and attached them to the balsa using Fast Grab Tacky Spray.  After positioning the paper over each fin, I brushed on Super Glue, wiping off the excess ever...