Glassing
I decided to fiberglass the phenolic tube I got from PML.
Since it was PML
tube I figured one wrap of glass would be good.
I decided to make this my
first vacuum bagged tube.
I put the glass on and wrapped the release and breather on and loaded it
into the bag.
When I unwrapped it it looked great. There were a few puckers
on the ends but I was able to fix thoes with epoxy and clamps. I thought I had
taken some pictures of this process but I can't locate them.
Here are the finished tubes
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Electronics bays
Staging bay:
I cut the hatch for the electronics bay that will house the sustainer
ignition electronics after the fin can was glued together. This allowed me to
optimize the position of it.
I used a dremel with a
cutoff wheel and exacto for the corners.
I then slid the BT off the fin can and mounted a coupler
inside. I cut a hole in the coupler where the electronics bay hatch was, leaving
a lip for the hatch to mount to.
On this lip I glued 4 tee nuts
to hold the hatch.
Deployment Bay:
I made the deployment bay out of two 6in LOC couplers and a 4in section of glassed BT.
I used the LOC couplers because I wanted extra room and 2 LOC couplers gave me a 12in bay where as a single PML coupler would have only been 7in. Also I had two spare LOC couplers.
I glassed the inside of both couplers with 1 layer of 6oz glass. I used a baloon to hold the glass in place. This worked suprisingly well and the couplers were quite strong. I also painted West system epoxy on the outside of them after they were glued in place to make them tougher.
