Friday, February 26, 2021

ASP MMX Jayhawk Build, Part 3, Cutting Out The Fins

CORRECTION
On the template, the outside of the left and right dashed lines says "Root Edge". I took that to mean it was the root edge of the fins. I cut out the wrong part of the fin template. Calling the edge of the template the "Root Edge" was a bit confusing.
My knife blade is set on the center triangles - cut out the two solid line triangle pieces in the center.

The Root Edge markings have been corrected in the production kits. My kit was pre-production.


Here's the wing tips - 
The instructions say to use double sided tape. I taped the flat plastic down then taped the template on top of that.
I scored the plastic about halfway through, removed the template and finished the cut. 

When I set the wing tip on the outside edge of the wing fin I realized I should have cut out the larger center wing template. 

This is the little nose cone fin piece.

I cut out the pattern and traced the cut out with a pencil on the smaller piece of plastic sheet.



The dry fit in the nose cone slot is pretty good.

There are some small gaps at the top and bottom. I can fill that with some CA glue on a toothpick tip.

4 comments:

  1. This is where Scotch double - sided tape is your friend. It makes cutting out these small fins a breeze.

    As you say, everybody builds their own way.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Metal,
      I didn't have any double sided tape handy. At the time it wasn't worth a drive to the office supply store.

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  2. Noticed you are using a retractable exacto knife. Any reason as to why you use that over say a XACTO hobby knife or a razer blade? I have noticed that balsa cuts easier with the XACTO and it is more nimble.

    Just Curious

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Professor,
      I find that 90% of my balsa cutting is simply freeing up fins from laser cut balsa sheets. Cutting the little hold down tabs doesn't require an X-Acto.
      X-Acto blade tips seem to break off, which made me think of a break off blade knife. I save a lot of money using the cheaper break-off blades.
      I still keep an #11 X-Acto knife handy for delicate things, but the bulk of my work is done with the Break-off blade knife.
      Here's a blog post:
      https://modelrocketbuilding.blogspot.com/2019/10/tools-essentials-hobby-knife.html

      Delete