The Fins

Four pieces of 5-Ply 1/4” Birch Plywood Stacked together and Band Sawed to shape.

Nails removed, the four fins come apart.

Alingment marks placed on both sides of the four fins.

1/4” Balsa stacked and cut to shape.

Simple alignment Jig used to locate edge of center balsa fin doubler.

Center Balsa Doubler Shaped using Wood Plan.

Outer Balsa Doublers in Place, and ready for shaping.

Wood Plane used to shape outer balsa doublers to give fin it’s double delta shape. Root Edge seen here.

Tip profile seen in this view.

Here we see the completed fin and all the wood shavings that were removed. Very little sanding was performed. One hour of work is needed to assemble and shape one fin.

5-Ply 1/4” Birch Plywood used for the rear three centering rings. 1/2” Plywood used for front centering ring.  Fins will have through the wall mounting and recess between the two centering rings.

The Nose Cone

Since I couldn’t find a large enough piece of solid wood to turn on the wood lathe I decided to make a built up nose cone.

Center support is a 6061 Aluminum tube a little over 1” in diameter.

Plywood dics are glued to the Aluminum tube with the help of rocket body tubes cut to length to help align the disks.  Shown is the lower portion of the nose cone.

Shown is the upper most portion of the nose cone.

1/4” thick Balsa Sheet is now being planked over the plywood formers.

Balsa planks are about half way around the perimeter at this point.

Several hours later and we are coming to the end of planking the forward portion.

1/4” Balsa is now being planked on the rear portion of the nose cone.

The rear planking is now complete.

A long sanding block is used while the lathe is turning to final sand the Balsa Planking to shape. Aditional filling of seams and sanding will be needed before the fiberglass cloth is applied.

Shown is the start of the Nose Cone lip that will go into the body tube.

Tube coupler glued in place over plwood formers.

Completed nose ready for filler and the addition of the upper most 6 inches of Nose Cone which will be turned out of solid wood and inserted into Aluminum tube.

The Build Continues

Fiberglass sock being applied to 6” Public Missile Tubing. The large weave of this cloth will need a second layer of fill using Micro Balloons and resin to help hide the texture of the cloth. Polyester Resin was used.

Two ounce cloth was used to cover both sides of the fins.  The leading and trailing edge of the fins will get a second layer of cloth with carbon fiber roving used along the edges.

Here we see my all fiberglass V2 next to the clubs Nike Smoke which stands and impressive 85 1/2” tall.  The Nike Smoke is just dry assembled at this point. The motor mount assembly still needs to be assembled and glued in place before the fins are permentantly attached.

More Build Photos

The Motor Mount and Fins