12-28-2006, 09:39 PM
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BARCLONE Rocketry
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Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Mobile, Alabama
Posts: 5,357
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Gus
Craig,
That is a stunningly beautiful design.
But with the small tolerances between parts keeping the blade vertical while cutting will be important. Better yet would be to laser cut the parts.
Think you might be able to interest Carl?
Again, truly a wonderful and original design.
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Thanks, Gus.
I've already asked Carl to look into working this fin pattern up, using the earlier fin images. You're right, that small tolerance is really tough just using a #11 blade and a steel ruler. My first prototype is evidence of that. It took me three days, off-and-on, to get a usable set cut by hand. This is still very much a work-in-progress; now Carl will need to look at the new pattern before making a decision. Once we get a pattern that has the rigidity like it needs, a laser-cut set will be easy to do and the parts will fit together much better than my first ones.
Keep in mind, the flight performance is still not confirmed. I need to get a few flights on this one to see if RockSim is right about those open-ended tubes causing such a lot of drag... |