Hobby Room -

"Welcome to my dream Crafting Room."

To see the short video - CLICK HERE

This is how I feel after I finish 

a big Odd'l Rockets vendor order . . . 

Improvements In Odd'l Rockets Kits

While I wait for drier weather to paint the Sandpiper -

Here's two improvements in the Odd'l Rockets 104 Starfighter kit.

3D printing has come a LONG way!

This is the PNC-24D nose cone from Apogee. Resin printed and very smooth. The plastic color is a light gray, the older cones were bright yellow. The gray is much easier to cover with lighter spray paints. Here is one coat of gloss white.

The intakes of the F-104 kit were split balsa nose cones.
While I pre-split the nose cones, the builder was still required to sand the inside contour to fit tight against the body tube. 

The new intakes are resin 3D printed by reallykoostuff.com 

Light gray, smooth and the underside is curved to fit the heavy wall BT-50 tube.

Meanwhile - at Odd'l Rockets . . .

Here's the floor of my living room after completing three of my largest orders to date! That black box in the back holds an Accordion. This might be why I'm single.

The brown bags contain the smaller items like Raise Springs, Birdies and Adeptors.

40 Raise springs, 20 Adeptors and 162 kits  - Whew!

New Kit? Robot!

Had some inspiration last night - 

I've been playing around with this idea for a while. 

This is the first build of the ROBOT.

I wanted it to reflect the wind-up tin robot toys from the 1950s and 60s.

18mm powered, much like the Odd'l Rockets Little Green Man and Pigasus.

It is different with a rear eject of a 12" parachute.

The robot arms are bent to the front on the left, and turned back on the right side. This should give it some spin stabilization. 

Note I wrote "should".

The fins are based on a "track" for movement much like the Robot from Lost In Space. I borrowed the idea of the multi-fin design from the pre-production art of the Estes R2D2: CLICK HERE

In initial sketches, I couldn't get the head right! That was until I remembered Rosie the Robot maid from the Jetson's. The side set body tube works well.

New designs go through many changes before production, no balsa filling or color for now. I've learned not to spend a lot of time finishing a test model. Will it be a kit? 

Now comes the flight testing.

A Day At Odd'l Rockets

Now that my back is on the mend, I can pull up some "filler" posts:

Kit prepping:

The Odd'l Rockets F-18 is currently the more popular of the three fighter jet kits.

I vacu-form the canopies, two at a time. Any more than that and the plastic gets too hot!

Parachute kits:

The Odd'l kits that need a chute get one of my "pick your size" parachutes at 12", 15" or 18" diameter.

In the zip bag you'll find:

#10 cotton embroidery thread for shroud lines (very strong)

and plastic (not paper) reinforcing rings

All Odd'l Rockets kits include the heavy wall BT-20H tubing. (Except for the lighter weight Cylcone)

Standard 20/50 rings won't fit the slightly wider diameter heavy wall tube. This requires some simple hand peeling of the inside ring wall for a perfect fit.

More 18mm Odd'l Rockets Sputnik Tests

I drove to the Orlando ROCK club launch afterward the early morning June 10 soccer field launch. I delivered a large order of Odd'l Rockets kits and supplies to Roger of jonrocket.com. 

Pigasus and Little Green Man kits are available again!

I did two more tests of the Odd'l Rockets SPUTNIK with 18mm B6-2 and C5-3 motors. 

Both were very stable and high compared to the usual 13mm A10-3t motors. 

After five test launches - Some considerations -

1. 18mm motors are an inch longer which doesn't leave much foam above the top of the motor. The second flight today (June 10) blew the bulkhead disk and top off the Styrofoam ball. The 18mm ejection charge is more powerful than the original 13mm engine.

2. The larger, heavier motor casing could be considered a danger when ejected. 

3. That 3/4" cavity is more difficult to drill compared to the 13mm mount.

So the Sputnik kit will remain a 13mm rocket. 

It's still a great odd-ball design, an easy build and good "first launch of the day" rocket.

Odd'l Rockets F-18 Hornet, Blue Angels Build, Finished

I hope I never have to deal with these decals again!

Frustrating to re-mask and try to match the yellow/orange decals on the backing sheet. Then - 

Find out when transferred onto the model they are closer to the yellow I had sprayed on before! I'm leaving it as is.

The top of the wings are pretty plain.

The underside of the wings is more interesting.

The canopy is outlined with too many thin slivers of yellow-ish decals.

 

Here's the bottom of the nose area.

The decal breaks at the nose cone body tube joint.

Odd'l Rockets F-18 Hornet, Blue Angels Build, Part 8, Decals

The canopy surround decals are made up of five pieces.

The first largest piece is set down behind the rear of the canopy.

Second piece (left side picture) runs down the sides of the canopy.

Third piece (right side picture) continues the tapering line forward.

These were very skinny and difficult to match the ends.

I used the gray nozzle wraps from the Odd'l kit decal sheet.

These wouldn't show up when set down on the dark blue paint. 

I cut some white decal strips to go underneath the gray print decals.

The gray nozzle decals were rolled around the tubes over the white.

To cap it off, 

A strip of scrap black print decal was set around the clear canopy.

Odd'l Rockets F-18 Hornet, Blue Angels Build, Part 7, Decals

Here's the decal sheet, looking yellow/orange.

While the decals were on the backing sheet they were darker than the initial yellow I had sprayed.

I found out they looked more yellow when they were transferred. Aaaagh!

Look close on the sheet - there are a few very thin tapering lines that have to be pieced together on the model.

The U.S. NAVY decals only go on the bottom of the wing. I felt safe trying these first as there were extras.

These two transferred without any trouble.

Now the problems start!

The decals were very thin and prone to breaking up.

I pieced them together as best I could. Very frustrating and I almost threw in the towel.

These will require some lightly applied clear Future floor finish to insure adhesion.

Odd'l Rockets F-18 Hornet, Blue Angels Build, Part 6, Canopy & Decal

The model is painted a dark blue. The decals will need a white layer underneath to bring out the colors of the translucent inkjet print.

The cockpit decal from the F-18 kit was cut out, very close to the outside ink edges.

A sheet of clear decal paper was spray painted white and allowed to dry.

The cut out cockpit print was traced around the white sprayed decal sheet with a pencil.

The white layer was cut out, just inside the pencil lines.

Set the white piece on top of the cockpit decal to be sure the white layer edges are just inside the cockpit print.

Now the white under layer can be set down in the cockpit position. A piece of positioning tape was set down 3/16" from the end of the body tube.

After the white decal dries,

The cockpit decal can be set down over the first white layer.

After the decals dry,

Squeeze out a drop of medium CA glue on some scrap cardboard.

Center and set the vacuform canopy over the decal.

Hold the clear canopy firmly in place. Dip the tip of a toothpick into the CA glue. 

Apply the CA using the toothpick to transfer the glue to the front and rear of the canopy first.

When you are happy with the position,

Then run glue along the sides using the toothpick tip.

Odd'l Rockets F-18 Hornet, Blue Angels Build, Part 5, Yellow or Yellow Orange?

After another white undercoat - 

All the wing tips got shot with gloss yellow.

The tips were masked off and the rest of the model was sprayed with blue.

A problem - 

The yellow was too bright and didn't match the decals! See the decals, two pictures below.

I let the model alone for a few days to think up a work-around.

I had to mask off the blue body leaving the yellow wing tips open.

The wing tips were sprayed with orange.

Within ten minutes (I didn't have to let the paint dry for a few days) 

I lightly sprayed the wing tips with yellow.

The Ace brand spray paint is somewhat transparent, especially the lighter colors. The light spraying of yellow still let some of the orange show through.

Now I had a color that was a near match to the decals. 

This doesn't always work - 

(EDIT: Coming up - this decal color changed when they were slid off the backing sheet!) 

Here's where I'm at - 

Let the paint set up for a few days, then decals!

Odd'l Rockets F-18 Hornet, Blue Angels Build, Part 4, Wing Detail & Undercoat

The tip detail was glued onto the outside edge of the wing.

The rear tips of the detail is almost even with the trailing edge.

The rear of the detail also turns away from the outside edge.

The model got an overall coat of white gloss.

The Apogee nose cones are molded in a bright yellow. That yellow tint can show through the first coats of paint. 

The white undercoat always shows rough areas and rough glue fillets.

These are sounded down with 400 grit. 

This will need another coat of white and maybe some more sanding.

Odd'l Rockets F-18 Hornet, Blue Angels Build, Part, 3, Wing Tip Detail

I decided to use some tongue depressors I had in the spare parts drawer. 

These are made of hard birch with no grain pores.

Two were glued and laminated together. 

These dried under weight.

1/8" strips were cut. This gave me a nearly square rod.

Two were cut to length.

These were shaped and tapered on a sanding block.

The rear taper is sharper than the front.

The sides were rounded to match the picture in the previous post.

Odd'l Rockets F-18 Hornet, Blue Angels Build, Part, 2, Wing Tip Detail

There aren't any missiles on the Blue Angels F-18. Instead there are some wing tip details.

 

Here's a closeup from an online picture.

I assume this is some sort of antenna.

I'll have to make two of these.

At the top is the outline of the kit wing. 

The picture was enlarged to the same size. This gave me a close approximation of the length and diameter of the detail piece.

(The diameter should read .116")

Odd'l Rockets F-18 Hornet, Blue Angels Build, Part, 1 Parts & Decals

This won't be a repeat build, the Odd'l Rockets F-18 build was posted previously. 

This build will concentrate on a few new details, the Blue Angels paint and some troublesome decals.

   

Here's all the parts from the Odd'l Rockets F-18 kit.

I'll be using everything except the decals and the 3D print missiles.

Here's the 1/72 scale decals ordered through Ebay.

In the box at the top is the catalog description.

In the envelope is a decal placement drawing.

Odd'l Rockets F-18 Hornet, Blue Angels Version, Background

A while back, Alex Palm posted pictures of his Odd'l Rockets F-18 

on the Estes Model Rocket page on Facebook - 

"My latest build. The Odd'l Rockets F-18 Hornet. Blue Angels version."

I asked: "Where did you get the Blue Angels decals?

• "I was able to order them from Ebay 1/72 scale. Just do a keyword search for Blue Angels decals. I also saw them in 1/48 scale too."

I searched on Ebay and may have found the decals Alex used: CLICK HERE 

I always liked the Blue Angels F-18 in the blue and yellow. 

I found some good pictures online. I grabbed a Odd'l kit and jumped in.

To see the original Odd'l F-18 build: CLICK HERE

Odd'l Rockets F-18 Hornet Development & Build, Finished

This back shot better shows the black inside rudder wall.

The engine hook was moved to the center top to make engine install and removal easier.

The underside showing the dual jet tubes and new 3D missiles. 

Visually there is a lot going on. 

The nose with all the decals applied.