The large vacu-form sheet.
At the top you can see the horizontal tunnel recess to fit the engine mount tube.
While the forms are sharp, the secondary "hull" pieces (center) are high. The plastic is thin around the base edges.
The plywood was poorly cut.
Granted, die cutting plywood would be difficult to do!
The plywood wasn't great quality.
The backside of the plywood -
Many of the die-cuts didn't go through to the other side. I had to free up some lines with my knife.
A clay weight came in the bag but lead washer weights were supplied.
I'll be using the lead weights, held in place by the screw eye. The "recovery probe" nose cone was the same one used in the Estes two-stage Midget and Andromeda.
One of the things I remember from building this model is the fit of the nacelle endcap was a tight fit. Couple this with the rather thin plastic (due to draw height of those parts), did result in some cracking.
ReplyDeleteThe sanding of the secondary hull proved a bit challenging due to it being rather "floppy"
Yes, the plywood parts did pose a bit of the problem, the plywood wasn't the best quality, and the die-cutting was a bit more like "die-crush". I did like how the plywood parts provided a good structure for the parts. The way the nacelle pylons slotted into the "spine" part did provide solid alignment to help avoid droopy nacelles. Shaping the dorsal pylon was a bit of a challenge (the plywood was harder than balsa, but also the different layers in the plywood would sand a bit differently).