Friday, May 24, 2019

Estes Saturn V #1969 Build, Part 10, Shroud Gluing




Here's the final fit, ready for gluing.
The large end overlaps the coupler slightly, making a "stop" going into the BT-101 lower tube.

The assembly is straight, there is some camera distortion.




The instructions direct you to apply two lines of glue, one on the tube and another under the base end of the shroud. As the glued shroud is slid into position you are supposed to line up the pencil line with the shroud seam. This is difficult to do, you are working with glue that is setting up as you are trying to position the shroud.

TIP: I would suggest not worrying about the shroud seam. This is a flat, but-joint seam. You can always pencil in a line after the shroud is glued in place. Concentrate on getting the shroud properly seated against and over the coupler.


Slide the shroud down close the the coupler base.

TIP: I'm not going to put a ring of glue on thetube for the top of the shroud, that will be added after the shroud is on. The only glue line is going at the top edge of the coupler. Don't use a lot of glue, you shouldn't have the shroud edge saturated.

Slide the shroud down with the edge overlapping the coupler.


After the bottom glue dries, apply a thin glue fillet at the narrow end of the shroud and body tube joint. Fillet about 1 1/2" at a time. Remove the excess glue and smooth with a fingertip.
This upper glue joint fillet will be covered by the ends of the vacu-form wraps.

Now you can draw a pencil line to be used for positioning the vacu-form wrap on the reduction shroud.

Assembly time so far:
 4:40 minutes previous
 0:10 hour this post
 4:50 total

3 comments:

  1. This may be a dumb question and I am just not thinking it through, but any tips on drawing the line on the shroud so it lines up with the previously drawn line on the tube? In other words, how do I ensure it is straight and vertical relative to the tube? I think next time I do this, I will use a square to mark the coupler before I put the shroud on so then I can just connect the dots.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Eric,
      I'm not exactly sure what you mean - The shroud should slide over the tube, the large end should overlap the coupler as shown in the fourth picture above.
      With the top and bottom of the shroud in place the shroud should be straight.
      You could always draw the pencil line after the shroud is in place, that way you are not working against the glue that is starting to set.
      The reduction vacu-form piece will require a bit of positioning to get it on correctly. The pencil line is just a reference, the vacu-form wrap seam may not perfectly line up with it's final position.

      Delete
  2. That makes sense. I was asking about how to get the pencil line perfectly lined up with the original reference line on the tube, but it doesn't really matter. The pencil line just needs to be close and you can adjust the vacu-form wrap. I was overthinking it! Classic engineer trap.

    ReplyDelete