Second of my custom rocket construction projects. This is the also the 2nd of my semi-scale rocket builds. The first (DD05 V2) was mostly a simple modification of a single rocket kit. This project is based primarily on parts from an Estes LoadStar rocket kit, with significant modifications.
I decided to start off with the most challenging part of the build. Construction of the warhead section. The orginal real Honst John (MBG-1A and MGR-1B) had a rather unique bulged section to house the warhead. It took a few days of considering several methods of accomplishing this before it was clear that no intermediate tube was even required. Having all the parts I needed already I started the build.
Original LoadStar nose code and payload adaptor
Normally the parts are separated at the waist section in the middle, creating a seperate nose cone and payload adapter section. That middle part was not needed at all, and if used would have created a warhead section that looked very little like the original. To produce the desired result, the upper and lower sections would be chemically welded together.
Nose cone and adapter sectioned.
Following the fusing of two sections, fine filler was applied to all the joints and mold lines and set aside to harden.
Assembled, glued and filled warhead assembly
After the filler dried, and finish sanding completed, the assembly has taken on the desired look. The warhead’s boat tail is shorter on my semi-scale attempt than the real rocket. This is an important point to consider later in the project.
Final wet sanding of the nose section.
Checking scale of the nose and body, compared to a good side view of the real deal. Measuring, the photo was within 80% of the size of the final product. Considering the boat tail on my warhead section is shorter, I adjusted the body section proportion to give me a good overall length and look. Yes, this is a semi-scale project using off-the-shelf parts.
Double checking my scale calculations
To be continued….
Construction History
11-Oct-2009
Began construction of custom warhead section from LoadStar nose and payload adapter.
12-Oct-2009
Finish sanding of the nose section. Checking scale and calculating a reasonable body tube length.
The collection of flying rockets continues to expand.
FLEET (l. to r.) 220Swift, Sprint, Fire Streak, Viking, DD05 (V2), Phoenix, DD06 (Taser mod.), Big Betty, DD07 (custom)
DD05
This is a semi-custom design. Based on an Estes Baby Bertha rocket kit. Extended nose cone and scale V2 fins make this look similar to the world changing V2 Ballistic Missile of WWII. Rocket was still awaiting final finish paint at time of photo. [ Full Project Writeup ]
DD06
Design is more of a repair and subsequent enhancement of an existing rocket (Estes Taser). Following water damage at the base of the body tube, I sectioned about 2″ from it, and re-affixed the poly engine and fin assembly. The top red payload section is from parts ordered online. The L.E.D. payload (for night flights) comes from Halloween skull decorations (like the white plastic skull far right). A pair of night flights proved the rocket to be a good flyer and the lights made night recovery very easy. Night rocket launches are fun!
DD07
Constructed completely from spare parts attached to a large Estes BT-55 body tube that I ordered online. The fins and nose cone came the Baby Bertha kit. Launch lug and payload section came from an Estes Payloader rocket (which was parted out for another project DD08). Engine mount was constructed from scratch based on patterns from other kits and a home-made mild steel engine retainer clip.
Effort chronicled of converting an Estes Baby Bertha rocket kit into a semi-scale representation of a V2 rocket. Semi-scale because I’m not ready to construct the boat-tail rocket body just yet.
Original Kit Estes Baby Bertha is not really close to a V-2 rocket in look, beyond the stubby body and a faint similarity in the fins, oh and the number of fins (4).
As you can see from this diagram the V2 Rocket has a much longer, oglive type of nose section and much shorter fins:
Starting the Modifications
The first order of business is to get as close a representation as possible of the V2 fins. Do do this I’m simply going to scale up a planform drawing of the V-2, to match that of the kit. I measured out overall body length of the modified rocket (with new BT-60 Estes plastic nose cone) to 310mm.
My printer is not quite large enough to print the full 310mm, so I have cut the image at the CL of the rocket body mass (at 157mm). But first I had to calculate how much additional length to the overall rocket was required for the section of fun extending below the fuselage. It turned out to be 3%. So the total overall plan image is is 322mm. However the total image size my printer will handle is 251mm. The simplest thing to do was to cut off the top 71mm from the image and print it.
This up-scaled view was compared to the target size, which matched, and the final fin design was based on this image.
As it turned out, the fin is very close in size and style between the two rockets. In fact the root length is identical.
The new fin plan was laid out on fresh 3/32″ balsa wood ($3.00 at the local hobby shop), and 4 fins were constructed from the pattern (seen here).
Rule: When laying out fins, never run the root of the fin parallel to the grain of the wood. Doing so will seriously compromise the strength of the resulting fin, and possibly cause in flight detachment. It’s not only important to NOT have the grain parallel to the fin root, but every effort should be made to make the parallel to the fin’s leading edge! A recent construction error on my part had the grain running parallel on 2 fins, and perpendicular to leading edge on two others. The two with the perpendicular orientation are VERY FLEXIBLE and might sheer off in flight. So, really, there is only one ‘right’ way to orient the grain of your fins.
Following the cut-out of fins, they were sanded on all sides to equalize size, and straighten cut edges. These are no laser cut fins, this is old school fin construction circa 1970’s.
Once glued to the body, and fin joints suitable filleted, rocket is left to dry for 8 hours.
Next order of business is construction of the engine mount. The rocket body is much larger than the engine mount itself, so it requires the user of centering rings. These are stamped out of fiber board at the factory. What they charge for a motor mount kit is more than an entire rocket kit (crazy). Going along with the experimental theme of this rocket I have taken it upon my self to partially fabricate the motor mount myself.
The most challenging part is getting just the right diameters on the centering rings. So I have taken a Sharpy and darkened the die-punched rings in original kit, photocopied them, and glued the resulting pattern to some 3/32″ balsa (first photo). The original die-cut rings were marked with the body size (BT-60) and filed for future use. Cutting them out from the balsa, I affixed them to the main motor mount tube (blue) and sanded the edges smooth. Once the glue had setup on the mount, the assembly was installed in the rocket body according to the original specifications (last photo). Inside of the body tube is coated with glue.
Fabricating the motor mount centering rings from balsa
Completed motor mount (standard A-B-C size casing)
Motor mount installed and cemented into rocket body
The recovery system was also modified, based on the parachute I found in one of the vintage rockets I have from yesteryear. I recall ‘back in the day’ that a lot of the parachute recovery systems for these rockets had an opening in the top to accelerate decent and to keep drift manageable. I was happy to find that the oldest rocket I have still has it’s parachute and that chute has the original markings for the fast-descent configuration!
I took it’s pattern, transferred it to the new chute and replicated the modification. On a side note, the fast-descent chute I pulled from the old Bull-Pup 12D rocket was installed in my modified payload carrying Taser and it worked great! So I’m confident this will not result in too rapid a descent.
Old style Estes fast-descent chute
Pattern aplied to new chute
Final result of modification
Application of ‘ Dope‘ sanding sealer on the balsa parts, letting that dry and priming the body in white paint was next.
Rocket after first coat of white sanding primer
Final result of priming and sanding.
It’s first test flight was planned for the 4th, but wind was just too high. Here is the new Rocket next to the rest of the current flying fleet for a little size comparison. Flying fleet: (l-r) Taser, 220Swift, Viking, V2 thing.
While I was prepping the rocket, painting, sanding what have you, there was nagging issue. Well, two nagging issues:
The fins looked too large
Two of the 4 fins seemed excessively flexible.
I pulled out my scale renderings of the rocket, and had a major DOH! moment. While working up the drawings, there was an over sized and properly scaled diagram printed on opposite sides of a sheet of paper. I must have been interrupted because despite all my efforts to create the 2nd, properly scaled layout, I used the older OVER SIZED layout for the rocket fins. The V2 looked more like something Jules Verne drawn, to get to the moon.
Combined with what I deduced was a major construction flaw (the wrong grain direction on the fins), I really had not choice but to CUT off the fins and start that part of the project over. So, I did just that.
GOOD and BAD fins. I highlighted the grain direction to point out what you should NOT do. Really it does make a difference!
Rocket stripped of it's fins. Getting all the glue and balsa off the body eventually required a heavy wood file.
Comparison of my fin size issue. The outside area is the actual fin I first created. The paper pattern is the correct size. Big difference.
A couple of hours of work went into removing the old fins, creating the new fins, cutting off all the old material, filing, sanding and installing the new fins. Almost back to square one, but I have the right size fins and the right grain direction on all the fins. I feel much better about flying this rocket in the next few days, than the previous incarnation.
Reconstructed. Some body putty to fix tube damage is seen at top. Everything has to be sanded again.
After hours of additional filling, sanding and repair the fist of the yellow base coats were applied. Again the Valspar pain (about $4.00 a can) resulted in a very nice smooth color. This photo was after only a single coat. the final coat really looked great. DD05 V2 model (left) Quest Sprint model (right)
Video of first test launch. You can see the nice slow liftoff. This was with a small A-class engine so altitude is not very high.
A couple of days later the final filling and sanding was completed, yellow base coat applied and ready for application of the test pattern masks. DD05 final base coat applied
And here is the final result. After a day of the paint drying, mask removed and we have the DD05 V2 semi-scale rocket model. DD05 V2 final paint
It was modeled after this actual rocket, seen here during testing at White Sands New Mexico.
29-Sep-2009
Construction started. Fin design finalized. Fins cut. BT-60 body tube marked for fins.
30-Sep-2009
Fins sanded to size. Fin markings on rocket body compared to V-2 side elevation for positioning. Fins installed and filleted.
5-Oct-2009
Primed and ready for a test flight. Final color schemed undecided. However a potential construction error on my part might ground the rocket due to incorrect balsa grain direction on 2 of the 4 fins.
6-Oct-2009
REBUILDING FINS: As much as I did not want too, I cut off the incorrectly built fins. I took photos that show how I botched the first ones. Body needs to be sanded, new fins made and attached.
7-Oct-2009
Priming, sanding, priming, sanding. Repairing damage to the main body tube from removal of the larger fins. Also used a commercial sanding sealer (really nasty stuff) on the balsa fins. It adds weight but it provides a nicer finish in return.
8-Oct-2009
More sanding and priming of the body. It’s just about ready for it’s final paint job, and I’ve finally decided on the scheme. A post WWII test pattern used on captured V2 rockets tested at the White Sands facility. I’m still tempted to paint in the ragged desert camo, but I also want to be able to find the thing when it lands!
10-Oct-2009
First coats of the base body color applied. First 2 test flights performed with great success. It’s a very nice flying rocket. It’s additional weight gives it a slightly slower and more realistic takeoff. The size of the rocket body also makes it easier to track in the sky.
13-Oct-2009
Project Completed! Final sanding, base and test pattern applied.
Weather was not the best this morning. Sunny but a fair bit of wind. So I ended up waiting until 16:00 to pack up 4 of the rockets and head out. We took:
Lucky for you readers, I forgot to take my camera so no video, no photos, just a quick accounting (for my records really).
We picked up 2 packs of mini-motors at the hobby shop. A set of 1/2A4-T (twice the power of the mini’s used previous in the Swift and SkyStreak), and pack of A10-PT which has A LOT more power than the 1/4A’s, something like 4 to 8x the power. We’d already had issues finding the little swift with the small motors. However it is wearing it’s new all-orange paint scheme so, I was willing to ‘risk it’.
220 Swift
Following the re-construction and repainting of the rocket, it’s nose-down descent profile does not seem to have improved. There is a certain amount of danger in one of these things coming down nose first at maximum velocity, so I’m considering permanent retirement of this specific rocket.
1/2A3-4T – (8.3 Newtons thrust) This motor has a max thrust of 8.3 Newtons, which has quite a bit more power than the engine we first used (1/4A3-3T – 4.9 Newtons). Against a white sky, this put the high-vis mini-rocket completely out of site. Thankfully the change to hi-vis orange was critical to use finding the rocket. The engine ejected as designed (un-recovered) but the rocket still descended nose down.
A10-PT – (13.0 Newtons thrust) First off. Don’t use this engine in a rocket. It has a max thrust of 13.0 Newtons. Plenty to get a rocket off the pad. HOWEVER, it turns out the ‘P‘ designation means ‘plugged‘. Plugged engines have no ejection charge. This completely explains why the two flights we made with this motor, the rocket cam down very rapidly with engine still in the body. There seemed to be a trace but NO ejection charge of any kind. With that much additional thrust the little rocket was quickly out of sight! GONE! Hasta la Vista baby!! Again, because of the high fis paint, I spotted the fins of the 4″ rocket sticking out of the grass about 150 yards away (thank God for my still better than 20/20 vision at age 45). I have 2 more of these engines, not sure what I’ll do with them now. :/
Viking
First flights for this school project class rocket. This was also my daughters first rocket project! It came out great and I have to say it flew great too! This is a streamer recovery rocket, like the Hi-Flier so it can be used in smaller fields.
A8-5 – (10.7 Newtons Thrust) First flights should always be done with a smaller motor. This specific rocket does not have an engine retainer (engine ejection expected?) but also has the streamer recovery with nose-blow actuation already noted. Flight was perfect. Straight up! Most predicatable flying rocket we have right now. Engine ejected (recovered) and so did the streamer. Rocket landed close to launch location. Could not have asked for a better launch evolution.
B6-4 – (12.1 Newtons) Sure, I like to push it a bit. We were able to visually track the rocket with the A engine. Launch put the rocket out of my visual range. Again, the high-vis orange allowed a recovery. Unfortunately, this time the engine did not eject from the rocket bods and it descended a little faster than before. Upon landing the fin with launch lug attached was snapped off. They were located together so it’s very unlikely it happend during flight. Back to repair shop for this one.
Hi-Flier
Another lesson learned the hard way, camouflage paint on a rocket might ‘look’ cool but in practice it’s a real pain in but to find them once they land. One thing to note about this rocket. Fly in light wind only. the CP (Center of Pressure) is far enough behind the CG (Center of Gravity) that it windcocks like mad in even a breeze. Windcock? That means it turns upwind due to the aerodynamic pressure on the over-sized fin area. Despite directing the launch rod slightly downwind on the 2nd lauch it still curved upwind.
A8-5 (10.7 Newtons Thrust) – This rocket has been flown many times with this engine. The difference this time time? The streamer did not unravel! Perhaps having it packed in the body all week awaiting our next trip to the range formed it into a ball. Whatever the reason, the thing came down like a rock from 600+ feet, landing with nice little thud, only a few yards away. No damage noticed on vehicle. Ready to launch again.
C6-5 ( 15.3 Newtons thrust) – Why not tempt fate a bit, right? Again he rocket turned up wind. With the higher impulse engine it really REALLY took off. With the 5 second tracking trace I was able to spot it pretty easily in the sky. While visually tracking it, a hoopie-mobile drove past my car making a sound like it had hit it! This distracted me (and my son). I was unable to visually re-acquire the rocket. Having lost a track on it, combined with my brilliant idea to paint it in a camouflage pattern, IT’S LOST. We walked the entire downrange area and after 30 minutes decided to call off the search. So far, it’s not been recovered.
Taser
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Our roof top tardy Rocket flies again! This is another one of those really nice fliers. Good aerodynamic balance. This is the rocket that came in our launch kit, and the 1st one we built. Also the one that was lost on the roof of the Gym for a day, eventually taking a short bath in the rain gutter of the school. There is some damage to the lower section of the main body, a little delamination of the tube and somewhat of a soft spot. It’s flying just find though.
The last time we used a larger motor (a B engine) we lost it on top of the school. Since that time I’ve cut 6 1″ slits in the top of the parachute, and most recently opened up a large hole in the center of the chute to further accelerate it’s descent. A good decision.
C6-5 ( 15.3 Newtons thrust) – I had a few of these engines laying around that were given to me (age unknown). Time to use up another motor. Lift off was again straight up. And up, and up! GONE! It went into the low clouds and was GONE. Oh boy. A few seconds later I was able to see it coming down on it’s chute. Yeah! Except it seemed a little too far away, and still drifting downwind. It quickly became clear this was NOT going to land in our LZ. We watched as it drifted above the school and finally out of view over the roof.
Told the boy to pack the gear and hop in the car. If we were lucky it would have completely cleared the entire school and we’d be able to find it. The school is no longer used and most of the grounds are closed off with cyclone fencing making search really difficult. As luck would have it, as I pulled into on of the parking lots on the other side of the school, I noticed something like a pile of trash (amounts all the rest of the trash) right in front of the car that looked odd. Walking over to it, I saw the rocket under the white parachute and completely in tact. YES! Got lucky and got the rocket back! I’m thinking of removing the chute completely and going to a streamer recovery on this one too.
The direct link to the current engine chart is here: Estes Engine Chart PDF. I’ve also downloaded the sheet and am hosting here on my blog, just in case they move it again. Estes Engine Chart
Conclusions
Wind: Don’t launch in wind, it will just frustrate recovery, and if you have a model with over-sized fins it could mean it that it will run far up-range and possibly make recovery unavailable.
Paint: There is a reason space agencies paint test rockets in orange, they want to be able to see them. The same goes for model rockets. Sure, it’s nice to give them slick paint jobs, nice starburst fades, cool colors and all that. However, if you are unable to keep an eye on the rocket (it’s small, it flyies too high, whatever) painting it in a not-so-cool boring high-vis orange is a BIG plus. Right now I’m repainting the black sections of our Taser in orange for easier location if it goes out of visual range again, as I suspect it will.
Once I let the oldest launch her first rocket, she was hooked! We spent the rest of the morning burning up about $40 of engines in the rockets. I’d been trying to get her to at least join us to see if she would like to get into model rocketry. Being a ‘girl’ she insisted that she could not because it’s a ‘boy thing’. Happily she disposed of that preconception and was soon anxious to build her own rocket!
After a birthday party event, we headed to the hobby shop to let her pick out whatever rocket she wanted to build. After much deliberation, she selected the ‘Viking Research’ multi-configuration rocket used by the schools (this is probably the same kit I built in Jr. High School!).
It did not take long to go through the checklist and get the number of fins selected (options ranged from 3 to 5) and which way to mount them on the body tube (there are 4 different ways to mount them, which means you can come up with some interesting designs!).
This is what she decided upon:
A couple of days later, once everything was dried, a few coats of primer were applied and the final color painted we had this gem of a rocket! I look forward to flying it this weekend, and I think she does too!
A few other rockets are in the boxes, ready to be built. But first a couple of the already constructed models need some work. The most urgent of which is the little Swift 220.
After the first launch, we lost it for a while! It took 30 minutes to find the thing. And the reasons were clear.
It was painted a color far too dark, so we lost it in the sky
The dark green and yellow paint on the body made it very difficult to spot on the field
My little ‘extra’ fins changed the rockets CG to the degree that it was not able to ‘tumble’ back to earth, but instead came down like a dart.
As you might guess, this was hard to find! This is what it looked like when we finally found it!
After stripping off the extra fins, and sanding to take off the dark paint.. we have this little mess. Lots of work to do on such a little rocket.
Original Kit 
As you can see from this diagram the 
