The rings are glued together making three thick figure 8 rings.
I used my #11 blade to carefully and cleanly remove the launch rod holes.
Be aware of the launch rod holes being in line throughout the build.
To insure alignment, the glued doubled rings were slid over the BT-20 tubes. Don't glue the centering rings onto the tubes!
Some 400 grit was wrapped around a finger.
The inside of the rings was lightly sanded.
The outside of the rings was also sanded to remove the ash from the laser cutting.
These days, I almost always try to figure out how to get 1/4" launch lugs on my LPRs. These types of rocket,s with the lug holes through the cards, make that difficult. The Estes Shuttle is similar and had almost no room on the card to expand the hole. I have a couple of those Shuttle kits and have not yet figured out a good way to use a 1/4" rod.
ReplyDeleteFor this one, it turned out to be not that difficult. I used the left over cardboard card (after you cut out the rings) as a jig clamped down on my drill press and drilled 1/4" holes in the rings in place of the stock holes. I did this after I glued them up. The point of the Jig is to ensure you drill the hole in the same place on each ring. Luckily, these rings had plenty of room to expand the hole. I did sand them to slightly oversize after drilling. Haven't launched this one yet, but the holes are lined up and the rod seems to slide smoothly, so fingers crossed!