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Sheri's Hot Rockets - Mercury Atlas
Looking for anyone here who may have built the Sheri's Hot Rockets Mercury Atlas.
I have a kit (a gift from my fellow NAR Trustees when I retired from the NAR Board) that I'm thinking about building this winter and flying at NARAM-60. Any tips, hints, "gotchas", etc.?
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#2
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It's been a while since I built mine, but I'll share what I remember.
Originally I was building it as an entry for Sport Scale at NARAM 52 - something I eventually abandoned as it became apparent there was no way I was going to be able to keep it below 3.3 pounds. Anyway to score some scale points I decided to make it a 3 engine cluster with 18mm outboard engines. This turned out to be a waste - added complexity and weight for a negligible performance improvement. And even with my struggles to keep the weight down, it's woefully underpowered on a 29mm G, and not a whole lot better on an H. If I build another I'd seriously consider making it a 38 mm mount (obviously will need nose ballast). The only part of build I remember really struggling with was the 'side pod' extensions (above the Atlas outboard engines). They are made from Styrofoam, covered with thin sheet plastic and it's really had to get them smooth and symmetric so use extra care. You'll want to fill the body tube seams otherwise they'll show through the chrome covering. I've built all of the SHR kits - it took some experimentation to get a finish on those crude tubes but what I ended up works pretty well: I take Elmer's wood filler, thin it very slightly with water, and rub it over the entire outside of the body tube. After it's dry, I sand it down (~180 grit) - be careful not to go too deep and get into the cardboard - then follow up with a coat of primer. Hope that helps, if you have any specific questions just ask. |
#3
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I always design kits with a main or host mount larger than "required" so either a single grain load can be used or a cluster. If he says 38mm minimum I suggest BT-70 (approx 54mm) so you can do a short 54mm, a mid-length 38mm, a long 29mm, or 3 24mm, probably over 120ns each.
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