Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Mercury Engineering 3" Diam. School Rocket Build, Part 5, Stars Placement

Once again, the blogs posts came in out of order! Early this morning, #6 was posted. #5 was way down in the older posts.
Here's #5 answering the question posted by Neil W.




The star templates were taped to the chrome Monokote trim sheet and cut around with a new blade.

In the end I didn't use much of the chrome sheet. Many of the smallest stars were cut from the areas left between the larger stars.





Set the stars in place using the tip of your hobby knife. Don't place any stick on decal using your fingers.
Using just the knife tip leaves the underside of stickers cleaner and less likely to leave dirt and raised bubble areas.





The largest stars were purposely set over the nose cone / body tube seam.
Slide the nose cone all the way in before setting down an overlapping star. Burnish, then cut through the joint.

It just takes a moment to turn the cone to line up the star tips before flight.

4 comments:

  1. Ah. :)

    That's a really nice touch. I'll need to try playing with Trim Monokote sometime, it looks like it has interesting possibilities. The only trick is to cut it into the desired shape in the first place.

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    1. The Trim Monokote is very easy to use. The stars weren't perfect, symmetrical five point stars. It was easier to draw and cut them out with a looser feel.
      The hardest thing to cut are long (wrap around) strips. They sometimes aren't the same with from beginning to end.

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  2. This is a great value. I'm going to replace the motor tube with a 29mm tube and coupler, bulkhead and section of tubing (~8") and call it the "Grad School Rocket"

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    Replies
    1. Ask Bill at BMS about longer TTW fin tabs so you can glue them to the 29mm engine mount tube. He said he might offer that as an option if enough people were interested.

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