A few years back, I finally finished mine, I had started building back in the 70's. But then swapped it for an unfinished kit of a friend of mine. Gave him mine, on a stand when he was diagnosed with terminal cancer, for all I know his family buried him with it, as I do not know what became of it after that. So I have been getting parts to complete his old one, but I did opt for a 3d printed escape tower assy, and the Semroc laser cut fins.

IBM?

Back in the day, I think they were the only document printer available.

BTW, do you know the story of the IBM printer in the USSR?

__________________
If it flies, I can crash it!

I know the story of the IBM printers in the USSR.
A buddy's father worked for IBM when that went on.

__________________
When in doubt, WHACK the GAS and DITCH the brake !!!

Yes, there is such a thing as NORMAL, if you have to ask what is "NORMAL" , you probably aren't !
Failure may not be an OPTION, but it is ALWAYS a POSSIBILITY.
ALL systems are GO for MAYHEM, CHAOS, and HAVOC !

Thanks for pointing out the scan here - I'm going to try to use the originals, well, because they're originals. Nice to have a backup, though.

Spent yesterday working on the tower. The tower dowel section, WD-41 sure is a weird part, I wonder how it was made? Routed? Pressed? Cutting out the dowels was easy enough with a sharp Excel #11 blade. Sanding, not so much. I sanded all 5 dowels using the twirl method show in the instructions, with 320 grit, took quite a while. Despite trying to handle the pieces very gently, most of them broke while sanding. Fortunately, it seemed like there was extra.

Once they were sanded, the thick and thin ones didn't seem a whole lot different in size, but I think I got them sorted out.

Attached Thumbnails

   

__________________
Paul
If we weren't all crazy, we would go insane - Jimmy Buffett
NAR #87246 www.wooshrocketry.org

First part of the tower is the base, made from 2 card stock rings, and 6 tiny dowel pieces. Sanding the bevel in the pieces was the hard part. A fine-point tweezers helped glue the pieces onto the base. Sure needed my Donegan Opti-Visor to put it together. The problem, then, is that tiny imperfections are easy to see. Well, they should be covered up by the glue joints and paint in the end.

Attached Thumbnails

   

__________________
Paul
If we weren't all crazy, we would go insane - Jimmy Buffett
NAR #87246 www.wooshrocketry.org

Next was cutting the 18 pieces for the 3 tower sides. I cut a few extra in case I dropped or broke one during assembly. Put waxed paper over the instructions, and built one side at a time, letting each one dry, then touching up the joints with a little more wood glue.

When I went to put the 3 sides together this morning, they didn't quite fit, so had to break & re-glue a couple bottom pieces. Couldn't figure out a good way to glue all 3 sides together, so I glued 2 together and held them between my fingers for 15 minutes to let the glue set enough. Fortunately had a hot cup of coffee from fresh ground dark roast to drink while holding. Once the glue was set, I layed it flat on wax paper, and glued the 3rd side.

It's not perfectly symmetrical, once dry it may need some adjusting to fit onto the base.

Attached Thumbnails

 

__________________
Paul
If we weren't all crazy, we would go insane - Jimmy Buffett
NAR #87246 www.wooshrocketry.org

Skipping the dowel escape tower build misses half the fun

BTW, I found this page on Chris Michielssen's blog: http://modelrocketbuilding.blogspot...ver-part-a.html, his opinion is WD-41 was heat pressed from mahogany. Seems plausible, the stuff isn't as hard as the part name would suggest. Pretty cool in any case, Mahogany wood in a model rocket!

Was the K-41 the only Skill Level 5 kit released in a bag during the Skill Level packaging years? That would make it the only red "Skill-Level hang-tag" kit ever.

__________________
Paul
If we weren't all crazy, we would go insane - Jimmy Buffett
NAR #87246 www.wooshrocketry.org

The K-41 Mercury Redstone is the only red skill level 5 packaged kit.
The Mars Lander was originally bagged, but never in skill level packaging.

__________________
When in doubt, WHACK the GAS and DITCH the brake !!!

Yes, there is such a thing as NORMAL, if you have to ask what is "NORMAL" , you probably aren't !
Failure may not be an OPTION, but it is ALWAYS a POSSIBILITY.
ALL systems are GO for MAYHEM, CHAOS, and HAVOC !

I built it on the one I completed before, just opted not to on the second build.

The one I built in my youth I did those tedious dowels and hand cut fins.
Not on ANY in future. I got Semroc laser-cut fins for both of my kits and will either make towers out of Plastruct rod or buy the 3d printed ones.

__________________
When in doubt, WHACK the GAS and DITCH the brake !!!

Yes, there is such a thing as NORMAL, if you have to ask what is "NORMAL" , you probably aren't !
Failure may not be an OPTION, but it is ALWAYS a POSSIBILITY.
ALL systems are GO for MAYHEM, CHAOS, and HAVOC !