Quest Intruder Kit Bash, Part 6, Shock Cord & Engine Mount Gluing

Here's the finished engine mount with the Kevlar line rolled up inside.

The Kevlar line is pulled out and tied to the elastic shock cord with a simple overhand knot.

Roll up the elastic and Kevlar and push into the motor mount tube before gluing the mount into the main airframe tube.

I used and old dowel to apply the glue into the main airframe tube before sliding the engine mount in.

Set the dowel beside the engine mount just below the upper centering ring. 

Mark the dowel at the end of the engine tube.

Apply a ring of glue around the top of the dowel. 

Insert the glued tipped dowel into the tube up to the pencil mark on the dowel. Roll the glue around the inside of the tube.

Quickly slide in the mount into the main airframe tube.

You can use the flat face of a sanding block to help press the mount tube ends even.

Quest Intruder Kit Bash, Part 5, Engine Mount & Kevlar

The Quest instructions use the engine block height to mark the slit cut line. 

Pencil mark and cut the 1/8" wide slot for the engine hook.

The instruction say to glue the two rings 1/2" from the top and bottom of the engine tube.

I don't think that offers enough flex of the engine hook when sliding in an engine.

I set the low centering ring 7/8" from the bottom.

Instead of 1/2" from the top of the tube - 

The upper ring was set over the upper bend of the engine hook, approximately 1/4 from the top of the tube.

I've pencil marked the ring to show how the ring is centered over the hook.

This strengthens the mount. 

The instructions have you tie a double overhand knot to secure the Kevlar under the upper ring. That thick knot might bulge the outer tube - not much room between the 20/50 rings and 1" diameter tube.

I rolled the Kevlar around the tube with the overhang tail twisted under the start of the line. The twisted Kevlar end is pushed into the glue fillet.

Quest Intruder Kit Bash, Part 4, Parts Prep & Centering Rings

The shoulder base was glued into the nose cone using Fabri-Tac glue.

This glue works great on simple plastic to plastic and plastic to body tube joints.

It is not recommended for delicate assemblies like a Mercury Redstone tower.

The Quest instructions offer a great TIP:.

For a better fit over the engine mount tube: Use the tapered nose cone to compress down the burrs and slightly widen the diameter of the centering rings

I'm replacing the thin yellow engine mount tube with an Odd'l Rockets heavy wall BT-20H. This will require a some  peeling of the inside layers of the centering rings to fit the  slightly wider diameter tube. 

It doesn't take much of a peel for a good sliding fit.

Odd'l Rockets BT-20H heavy wall tubes are only available through jonrocket.com. 

TIP: In the left pic: To prevent peeling, don't cut an engine hook recess slot on the diagonal inside seams. 

Right side pic: Start your notch on the other smooth side.

On the left: The engine hook notch is cut. I marked it with pencil to show up better in the picture.

On the opposite side of the engine hook notch, the upper ring gets a Kevlar notch made with a diamond file.

Quest Intruder Kit Bash, Part 3, Parts Prep

I always check the tube end cuts with the flat face of a sanding block.

The cut was off and took some square sanding with 220 grit on the sanding block.

The tube had a slight dent that would show up with paint applied.

I filled it with some thinned CWF and followed with 400 grit sanding.

There was some molding flash on the nose cone end plug.

This was trimmed and sanded off. 

 

The nose cone tip had some mold lines at the rounded tip.

On the left is the before - 

On the right is after sanding with 400 grit.

Quest Intruder Kit Bash, Part 2, Engine Mount Tube

I don't know why, but sometimes the Quest engine mount tubes are a little under the standard 2 3/4" length.

The yellow tubes work fine, but seem thin. This tube was starting to peel at the ends.

I switched out for an Odd'l Rockets heavy walled BT-20H tube cut to 2 3/4" long.

I was curious of the weight difference - 

The Quest tube weighed 4 hundredths of an ounce.

The slightly longer Odd'l heavy wall tube weighs 6 hundredths of an ounce.

Quest Intruder Kit Bash, Part 1, Parts

Above - 

All the parts that were still in the bag.

Seems I had thrown away the Quest engine hook. The Quest hooks aren't spring steel so I switched it our for a BMS engine hook with no finger tab.

The 3/32" thick balsa sheet is die-cut.

The yellow engine mount tube seems thin walled and is starting to peel.

The nose cone is an older MPC style with a very short shoulder.

The shiny strip on the right is all I could salvage from the stick on decals that peeled off the backing sheet. I'll have to re-draw and print some home made decals.

For whatever reason, I assembled the parachute.

This is an older, "crispy" Quest chute with the shroud lines tied to the Quest "gripper tabs". The tabs are very thick and make it difficult to pack the chute.

Quest Intruder Kit Bash, Background

You should be familiar with the Interceptor, the fiftieth kit produced by Estes. 

A fiftieth kit is a milestone and had to be special. It was! 

I remember first seeing it on the cover of the 1971 Estes catalog - CLICK HERE

Quest had their own version of the Interceptor - The Intruder!

The Estes Interceptor was larger, BT-55 based and had a new plastic  nose cone with canopy and detail pieces. The water slide decals sheets were big!

The Quest Intruder was smaller, with a 25mm body tube, close to a standard BT-50 diameter. The decals were peel and stick and followed some of the Interceptor red, white and blue decor. 

Originally I picked up two of the Quest Intruder kits. One was re-sold on Ebay. 

A few years back, I opened the remaining kit. The peel and stick decals were off the backing sheet, stuck to the instructions and  unusable.

I set the kit aside until a few days ago.

I'm going to "kit-bash" the model making it a look like an Interceptor downscale - sort of.