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Old 07-24-2016, 03:01 PM
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tbzep tbzep is offline
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Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: TN
Posts: 11,610
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It depends on what you want to do with it. Some folks think a model has to fly 100,000 ft (GH), while others may just want to look at it on their shelf.

I've done several BT-80 upscales that I use at school demos. I purposely went with 1/4" balsa to keep the rocket light, but add a bit of drag. It lets me go with smaller motors and keep the rockets on small playgrounds. Believe it or not, I have a BT-80 based Red Max with 1/4" fins and a big honkin balsa nosecone that will fly on a C11-3 and could use another second of delay.

If you want to go altitude, use 1/8" ply. If you want a scale hangar queen, use 1/4" and hit it a few extra times with the sander. If you plan to fly it a lot but still want scale thickness, you can even do 1/8" ply frame sandwiched between two sheets of 1/16" balsa. It's not really that much more effort. Go TTW regardless because that's a lot leverage on a surface mount.
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