Ye Olde Rocket Forum - View Single Post - NEW Falcon 9 scale parts!

Quote:

Originally Posted by dwmzmm

Ok, I've completed the installation of the Landing "Legs" and Grid Fins to my Space X Falcon - 9 model rocket. The 3D recreation of the Landing Legs is basically flat (on the surface that faces the main stage body tube) but the lower struct does not "curve" to the lower body as it should. I tried two different methods to "fix" this: Held the hard plastic over a burning gas stove to soften the area so as to allow the struct to bend slightly. I did this to two of the struct; the first one got hot too fast and, to my shock and horror, looked like a wet noodle. I was able to cool it quickly while bending the struct nearly perfectly. After that, I tried using boiling hot water to soften the struct, which proved just as difficult as the plastic used to make this 3D part is really tough, but I was able to bend them down slightly. For the last (4th) struct I used the holding over a burning flame once more with little difficulty. Got all the Grid Fins in place and the Falcon - 9 looks much better than the stock kit which came with horrible foam "stick on" landing legs that kept peeling off. Any of the imperfections of the lower struct of the Landing Legs won't be obvious while the model is on the launch pad and in flight anyway, so that is that. Maybe one day soon Space X will invest a little more for this kit to enhance the details better.

Thank you for posting those photographs--I can see what I'm looking forward to when I build one of my Falcon 9 and Fairing kits with the upgrade parts! And you're right--as the author of a Bachem Natter scale model rocket article in "American Aircraft Modeler" wrote (because he had to use wings that popped off at launch, to make the model ascend stably), "The important thing about a scale model [rocket] is how it looks on the launcher. Once it starts to move, the details are lost." Also:

I'm surprised that you wrote that "The 3D recreation of the Landing Legs is basically flat (on the surface that faces the main stage body tube) but the lower struct does not "curve" to the lower body as it should." The lower (wider) portions of my landing legs have a radius of curvature that doesn't match the curvature of the Falcon 9 body tube, either (as I noted when I "dry-fitted" the legs onto one of my Falcon 9s), but the mis-match isn't so large--at least with the set of landing legs that I received--that heating and warping the legs is necessary. Just wrapping the body tube with sanding film and sliding each landing leg strut up-and-down and left-and-right should be enough to match the legs' radii of curvature to that of the body tube. In addition:

Looking at the printed conduits and other small surface details on your Falcon 9, I see opportunities for even more 3D printed upgrade parts... (But I must be careful to avoid having a flare-up of "accuracy fever," which can ruin one's enjoyment of scale models of any kind, not just rockets. A modeler must know when to stop and just enjoy a scale model as it is, because it's possible to 'super-detail' it to such an extent that s/he can't enjoy flying it for fear of a crash or a "fly-away" negating all of the work that went into building it.)