Here's another small project I've been working on.
A contract build of a Saturn V had broken tower. The tower was broken beyond repair. Luckily I have an extra #2157 capsule and tower kit.
This was a display build, not meant for flight.
I wanted to figure out a way to prevent a future tower break if the model were to fall over again.
I decided to do a friction fit of the legs into the holes at the top of the capsule. If the model fell over, the tower could flex and pop off in one piece. That's what I'm hoping for anyway -
The problem -
The tower legs have too loose a fit into the capsule holes.
I squeezed a small drop of Beacon Fabri-Tac glue into the holes and cleaned off the excess glue. Don't use much glue, you don't want it to melt the plastic.
I used the thicker Fabri-Tac as it would fill the holes. Liquid (brushed on) cement would be too thin for this.
The glue completely covered the holes and if allowed to dry you couldn't push in the tower ends.
Open the holes slightly with a round toothpick. You want to leave some glue on the inside hole wall to make the inside diameter a bit smaller.
Let dry and test the fit. I did two applications with the glue and toothpick.
Many builders won't fly a delicate tower on their scale models. The older Centuri Mercury Redstone instruction say to insert the top spike (no glue) for display, remove it for flight.
Yep... the framework of the escape tower assembly tends to be rather delicate, so obviously I'd be hesitant to fly a model with the escape tower attached (unless it's like the one on the "semi-scale Saturn V" model where the framework portion was more decoration than structural).
ReplyDeleteWould be apt to make the escape tower a "press-fit" item to allow it to "pop off" rather than break (even on static display model) in the case where the model topples over (which is quite likely to occur due to small base area compared to length).