I really can't believe it has been this long since I last posted. After a brief spurt of activity my rocket building went back into idle mode. Now I've set myself serious goals in order to give me a reason to get busy. I am planning on attending XPRS 2017 and BALLS 2017. To do so means I need to build rockets and get at least one ready that I can fly on a "K" or "L" motor, since the smallest commercial motor allowed at BALLS is a "K".
Last week I finally epoxied the fin can and motor retainer to my scratch built rocket. I applied a band of five-minute epoxy at the aft end of where I expected the fin can to mount and then slid the fin can up, twisting as I went to help distribute the epoxy in the join. I had to wipe off some excess epoxy from the front of the fin can, but it wasn't a major issue. I left that to set for 24 hours before using JB Weld to mount the retainer. I followed a very similar process for the application of the epoxy and sliding on the retainer. Clean up of excess weld was a bit more difficult. I ended up resorting to paint thinner in order to get the excess removed.
Next step is to mix up some of the filler to help smooth out unevenness in the epoxy on the airframe tubes and then sand, sand, sand.
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