/diy/ - Do It Yourself

>>1182380
The fiberglass will still need sanded, but for now we are going to put them on the back burner. You can remove the mylar whenever they are hardened, just pull it out. I use an air compressor with a needle to spray air between the mylar and fiberglass when it gets stuck.

The nose cone is going to be a bitch. The way I've been taught, involves turning a piece of insulation foam as a core, then layering epoxy and fiberglass over it. I experimented with several other methods because the turning method means more work for me; however in the end I had to bite the bullet and do it. Let me explain.

Earlier you may have noticed a lathe in the background of a pic. I got it on craigslist with the understanding that it was frozen up, and missing parts. With of course, no motor. Now, I had it laying around to fix up eventually, but I knew I would have to take it all apart and rebuild it. This means waiting on parts, finding a motor, building a table, yada yada yada. I ended up getting it running for this project, but I rushed a bit to stay on time for the rocket launch. I will have to go back and refinish and build it a table later.

Anyways, to turn a nose cone, I used my cad files to get a profile of the nose cone's contour. I made a jig that mounts directly to my lathe, and has the profile on both sides. This allows you to use a sanding block or files to narrow down to the correct profile by resting the tools on them. To make 2 identical profile templates, I use CARPET TAPE. It is the strongest fucking 2 sided tape on earth, no joke. It's amazing for doing layouts and cutting multiples of parts. To attach my paper templates to wood for cutting on the bandsaw, I use a 3M spray adhesive that comes off easily with acetone.

If you want to see how I rebuilt the lathe, I have a thread right now over here.
>>1181917