Pages

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

FlisKits Mercury Redstone Build Part 13, Tower Assembly?


The tower sides were too wide to fit against the escape rocket dowel! There wouldn't be enough contact to make a good glue joint.

I had a few extra sides made up.
The diagonal and horizontal struts were cut apart and trimmed a little shorter.
The second tower was glued up.
On the left is the first tower, on the right the second (slightly narrower) tower.
While the fit is better, to me it still looks too thick and clumsy.
I picked this thickness of plastic rods for strength, I knew they would be thicker than actual scale. Mr. Flis sent a letter explaining that the scale plastic rods would be a smaller diameter than what I used. It was a compromise, for strength and the local hobby store didn't have the thin plastic.
Even on the Estes and Centuri kits the tower structure was thicker than actual scale and had to be for strength. But on a model this small it looks clunky.
You've got to give credit to FlisKits for providing all the tower information and jig to glue it together. Building a tower is always a good exercise to see if you could really do it!
But, this time for simplicity I'll probably go with the kit folded card stock tower.

No comments:

Post a Comment