Upscale Explorer Aquarius Nose Cone
 

This is my latest commision and a real challange. But a lot of fun! ;)

I started by doing scale drawings. Overall and a side view.

Then I turned a 3/4" plywood bulkhead for the base and stack glued blue foam.

Turned my lathe on (it just fit my large lathe!!!) at its slowest speed and shapped it using the dimentions from full size drawings and a pair of GIANT calipers I made. ;)

I had to make all of the dimensions about 0.08" undersized to accomadate the fiberglass cloth and epoxy.

Then comes the tricky part...the eyeball and eyball socket! After laying out the drawing in two dimensions I had to transfer the cutout pattern to the cone. I had to "eyeball" it... :D I used a series of dots being carful not to get a parralax into my markings!. Then I just connected the dots...la la la...connect the dots, la la la connect the dots.

The eye socket was cut with an old bandsaw blade with duct tape wrapped around each end for handles. I cleaned up the cut with a drum sander on a drill motor.

I turned the eyeball itself on my other lathe...doesn't everybody have more than one lathe?
But the base was not quite round...it's kind of an ellipse that's squashed at one end.

So fitting the eybal required sanding fitting, sanding fitting...etc, until it fit juuuust right! Fortunately my stationary belt sander is righ behind my lathe so all I had to do was turn.

This is where I messed up a bit. I had made an eyeball out of "pink" foam but I made it too small and it was my last piece of pink foam. :( I really wanted it to have a pink eye.

Get it..."Pink Eye". :D Well, I thought it was funny!

TADA!!! a really really big Explorer Aquarius nose cone!

The iris and bloodshot lines are "compliments" of Christine at Estes customer Service. :D

Now the really ikky part...fiberglass and epoxy...I'll start that right after supper. Where are my gloves, facemask, Tyvek scoveralls??

Sandman,

Very, very, cool.

Your work of art makes me curious about the origins of such a great cone. I just checked Leo's site and no credit is given for the Explorer Aquarius.

Anybody know who designed it?

I imagine there was a fair amount of work behind the kit and that cone.

You should have started on it this winter when the static electricity on the foam shavings would be at its best. :D

Looking good, btw. :cool:

Recent purchase...high volume dust collector! ;)

Getting really close to primer!

The temperature (I'm close to Lake Huron) has been in the 40's and 50's so the epoxy is taking a really long time to cure.

It seems to stay "green" for like an extra two days before it's ready to sand. Any earlier and it just clogs the sandpaper. :mad:

It needs some hand sanding yet, hopefully tomorrow, then primer and glase some of the tiny imperfections, then more primer.

The last pic is of the handiest little tool my daughter got me for Father's day last year.

It's a Craftsman, variable speed with a bunch of different grit velcro sanding discs.

Each disc has it's own little universal joint so it can follow a compound curve. It's the ONLY too that can sand the "eyeball" on this cone.