Guess what I found at Hobby Lobby-- EMBOSSED PAPER! And I found it in HUGE sheets...

Go back to the section where they keep the Bristol Board, art papers, posterboard, etc... the huge vertical racks holding the sheets horizontally from about 5 feet high to down near the floor-- just beside the matte board from every Hobby Lobby that I've been in...

Somewhere in all those horizontal slots will be some material about maybe 3/4 the size of a posterboard or so, with 1/8 inch wide ribs across it evenly spaced. I used similar ribbed cardstock in 8.5 X 11 sheet form that I got at a scrapbooking store in Indiana for the "coarser" intertank and thrust structure ribbing on my BT-80 Saturn V S-IC first stage... for the smaller, finer ribbing on the S-II interstage, fore and aft skirts on the S-IC, S-II, and S-IVB, I used foil-covered fine ribbed corrugated cardstock that I got at Michaels in the scrapbooking aisle... details in the "BT-80 Saturn V" thread of mine around here...

The large sheet of Hobby Lobby stuff is marked "Strathmore Ridge-Artic" and sells for $1.79 a sheet (before the 40% discount LOL

Can't beat that...

Later! OL JR

__________________
The X-87B Cruise Basselope-- THE Ultimate Weapon in the arsenal of Homeland Security and only $52 million per round!

The line drawing is the one on the instruction sheet for the Dragon Models 1/48 scale static kit. I blew up the drawing on my office copy machine (by piecing together multiple sheets of regular size paper) until the core diameter measurement matched my Series 20 core tubing.

I'm also using the plastic kit itself as a measurement resource. My order of priority is a measured dimension from the picture, a measured dimension on the static kit (multiplied by 48 and divided by 64) and the line drawing as I believe the line drawing to be the least accurate of the three.

What size are you building?

I did struggle a little with the cutter, but I appreciate the tip. I'm sure that practice would help, also.

__________________
NAR 79743
NARTrek Silver
I miss being SAM 062

Awaiting First Launch: Too numerous to count
Finishing: Zooch Saturn V; Alway/Nau BioArcas; Estes Expedition; TLP Standard
Repair/Rescue: Cherokee-D (2); Centuri Nike-Smoke; MX-774
On the Bench: 2650;
Dream Stage: 1/39.37 R-7

GAH!

Thanks for the heads-up, Chris. I'll add that step to my technique!

__________________
Jay Goemmer
"Centuri Guy"/"Tau Zero"
YORF Member 28
Semroc SAM #0029
NAR 86131


"I think about organizing things all the time. Never seems to happen. I find something that piques my interest and I'm off on a quest. Or a Centuri. "

--Bill Eichelberger, 02/22/2022


“Centuri fret buzz in an updated form.”
Bill “Wallyum” Eichelberger re: Estes Flutter-By
03 Sept 2014

Ya know I had a thought about that...

I was goofing around in Hobby Lobby the other day and saw something interesting that gave me an idea... it was some sort of knitting device that had a row of pegs along one side evenly spaced... I guess you loop your yarn over the pegs, going back and forth and then go from there...

What if one had a board or better yet an aluminum or brass or even steel bar, with appropriately spaced and appropriate depth/height "runners" all the way across its surface that could be run (slid) across a sheet of cardstock like a silkscreen wiper... embossing the paper the full width in one fell swoop... just have to affix the cardstock in a frame to hold it firmly, and have sufficient downforce and enough "give" in the backing to allow the tool to press (emboss) grooves in the cardstock as it's slid across...

The idea could be tested with something as simple as a board with trim nails or staples carefully driven in at the appropriate spacing... (and if using trim nails, having them nice and smooth and/or their heads rounded over so as not to cut or tear the paper).

Of course that doesn't do much for you where you have to arrange ribs RADIALLY (such as on conical transitions or on conical section fairings...) but then you can't get off-the-shelf material to do that either...

The other alternative I've thought of-- ROLLERS... maybe a stack of fender washers, appropriately spaced with regular washers to create a diameter difference between the larger fender washers which will do the embossing, and the smaller regular washers to keep them evenly spaced, with the whole thing held firmly together either on a bolt or peice of all-thread rod with a nut on each end tightened up firmly... could even make a handle for it that would increase the capability of putting more downpressure to get better embossing...

What we need is something like a printer head, running a rolling stylus (like say a fender washer or something similar, probably mounted precisely with a bearing or something... maybe a bushing; just something to keep the thing rolling true and repeatable.... slide the paper in, run the stylus across the sheet... slide it down another 1/16 to 1/8 inch, run it across again... over and over and over again, just like a printer...

As for the conical transition stuff, well, that's gonna be a toughie... unless you're going to have something like a CNC machine operating a universal-direction embossing tool head... (maybe like a dull version of a swiveling blade hobby knife??)

Just thinking out loud...

Later! OL JR

__________________
The X-87B Cruise Basselope-- THE Ultimate Weapon in the arsenal of Homeland Security and only $52 million per round!

I had pretty good results on my BT-80 Saturn V conical S-II transition and S-IC conical section engine fairings by using an old mouse pad as a backing and running over the cardstock with an old non-functioning ball point pen to do the actual embossing...

Later and KUTGW!!! OL JR

__________________
The X-87B Cruise Basselope-- THE Ultimate Weapon in the arsenal of Homeland Security and only $52 million per round!

My Hobby Lobby had Strathmore Arctic also, so I'm going to use it. My only concern is that the paper is so fine that it will not accept my usual heavy coat of paint without filling the indentions. But what the heck, it's worth a try.

I also decided to use some cut dry-wall patch mesh to simulate the mesh section farther up the core.

Pictures as soon as my wife gets home with the camera.

__________________
NAR 79743
NARTrek Silver
I miss being SAM 062

Awaiting First Launch: Too numerous to count
Finishing: Zooch Saturn V; Alway/Nau BioArcas; Estes Expedition; TLP Standard
Repair/Rescue: Cherokee-D (2); Centuri Nike-Smoke; MX-774
On the Bench: 2650;
Dream Stage: 1/39.37 R-7

Finally had a chance to do some work:

Picture 1 shows the core pieces ready for assembly. I used golf club epoxy (which has a very long setting time and is a cool black color) to glue in the motor mount. I added a baffle and "trapped" the baffle under the coupler. This was attached with yellow glue. After all of the above was dry, I attached the upper core segment.

Picture 2 shows the intial construction.

Picture 3 shows the baffle under the coupler. Hopefully, this will help prevent the baffle-out-the-top failure mode.


Next up will be the addition of the corregated sections and other core tube details. I am not using the Strathmore Ridge paper from Hobby Lobby. While it has fine corregaions for something like a small Saturn V, the pictures and documentation I have shows some very large, course corregations on the real Shenzhou so I'm going with a piece of scrapbook ridged paper I liberated from SWMBO's hoard.

Attached Thumbnails

     

__________________
NAR 79743
NARTrek Silver
I miss being SAM 062

Awaiting First Launch: Too numerous to count
Finishing: Zooch Saturn V; Alway/Nau BioArcas; Estes Expedition; TLP Standard
Repair/Rescue: Cherokee-D (2); Centuri Nike-Smoke; MX-774
On the Bench: 2650;
Dream Stage: 1/39.37 R-7

Making Progress:

Picture 1 shows the wraps cut and the paper shows my work. For this I used measurements from the picture and the model only. The bottom wrap is on top the width is 1 17/32 " and the length on this and all of the wraps is 6 7/16 ". The second, medium wrap was 27/32 " and the third of the three lower wraps was 9/16 ". The upper wrap was 1 1/32 ".

I drew a line down the length of the tube. I then held the wrap in place and drew a pencil line around the tube to show were I needed to spread glue. I used yellow glue and squeeged it to a thin layer with an old credit card. I glued each wrap individually, waited an hour and then glued the next one, drawing a pencil line each time. I left a very small but noticable gap between each wrap. The joint will be hidden under a LRB.

Picure 2 shows the core with the wraps in place. I need to add conduit and a few other details.

As a research note, the latest version of the Shenzhou booster, called CZ-2F/G or CZ-2F "second series" as used on the Shenzhou 8 and 9 missions, has only the largest of the three lower wraps. This new version represents a redesign to lessen the vibration that was so bad it made the first taikonauts sick during the boost phase. I'm building the Shenzhou 5, the first manned launch, but if this works, I'll talk Carl out of another set of cones for a second series build.

Attached Thumbnails

   

__________________
NAR 79743
NARTrek Silver
I miss being SAM 062

Awaiting First Launch: Too numerous to count
Finishing: Zooch Saturn V; Alway/Nau BioArcas; Estes Expedition; TLP Standard
Repair/Rescue: Cherokee-D (2); Centuri Nike-Smoke; MX-774
On the Bench: 2650;
Dream Stage: 1/39.37 R-7

Finally got some more time, so here's a picture of the strap-on LRBs with their fins on. Note that the fins overhang the rear of the boosters which makes them a little tough to paint. The fins are ply, sealed with yellow glue and smoothed with a thick coat of high-build gray primer. The next step is to spray them with Rustoleum Premium gloss white and then paint blue stripes top and bottom.

As a general proposition, I'm going to mask off the glueing surfaces for the LRBs and the main tube, finish painting them separately and then glue them together. I'm not a fan of this method but there appears to be no other way.

Attached Thumbnails

 

__________________
NAR 79743
NARTrek Silver
I miss being SAM 062

Awaiting First Launch: Too numerous to count
Finishing: Zooch Saturn V; Alway/Nau BioArcas; Estes Expedition; TLP Standard
Repair/Rescue: Cherokee-D (2); Centuri Nike-Smoke; MX-774
On the Bench: 2650;
Dream Stage: 1/39.37 R-7

In case you are not happy with that cardstock, there is a brand of sheet styrene you may want to examine. The company is JTT and the last time I was there, Hal's Hobby Warehouse had a rack of it along the back wall a little to the left of the centerline of the store.


Bill

__________________
It is well past time to Drill, Baby, Drill!

If your June, July, August and September was like this, you might just hate summer too...

Please unload your question before you ask it unless you have a concealed harry permit.

: countdown begin cr dup . 1- ?dup 0= until cr ." Launch!" cr ;

Give a man a rocket and he will fly for a day; teach him to build and he will spend the rest of his days sanding...