Saturday, January 26, 2019

SBR/Fusion Rocket Closing



Yesterday on Facebook, Scott Binder of SBR/FusionRocket.biz posted the following announcement.

This is the End.... due to health reasons, Scott Binder Rocketry (SBR) and www.fusionrocket.biz will close.

First, let me thank all of the customers we've had over the past 3 years. I started out with the Fusion - offering a one-stop solution for L1 and L2 certifications, and added several more models along the way. Sales were good - good enough for a one-man company, which is what I wanted it to be - something I could do in my spare time, and still offer personal technical support to our customers.

On January 14, 2019 I underwent double-bypass open heart surgery - something that a week earlier was was not even on my radar. Although the surgery went well, I feel I can no longer offer the same level of service as before - and feel I just need to concentrate on recovering from the surgery, and enjoying the remainder of my life as stress-free a manner as possible.

Therefore, I've decided to close SBR/fusionrocket.biz

Effective immediately, there will be no further production runs of any of our kits. The remaining inventory of kits will be sold on the website as usual, and each kit's ordering options will be removed as they are sold out. First come, first-served basis.

Currently, we still have Fusions, Thors, Diablos, Horizon, and ArrowX kits. We are already out of stock on the Honest John, and it has been removed from the website. In addition, I will be discounting the remaining inventory of tubing, nosecones, etc. to sell quickly, until it is gone. Adjustments will be made to website pricing on these items over the next few days. When everything is gone, we'll remove the website and delete the FB page.

Again, thank you to those of you who supported SBR - I still fully intend to attend launches as soon as I am able, but just as a spectator/flyer.

Sincerely,
Scott Binder

I'm currently building and shooting video of the SBR Diablo kit, which Scott sent me to review. The unboxing video is currently on my YouTube channel. The rest of the build videos have been complicated by some poor shots being a little difficult to edit, but there's still some fine material there.

With SBR going out of business, I suppose there's no need for a review now, but I intend to continue with the build and videos out of respect for Scott. It may take me a while. The rocket itself is pretty simple, and it's nearly done - though paint will most likely have to wait until winter is over.

Take care of yourself, Scott.

Friday, January 11, 2019

Built from Scratch - A Tale of Two Berthas - Part 2 (The Plan)


Click here for Part 1

Scanned, downloadable PDF files of The Model Rocket News can be found in a few places around the Internet. There are probably a few missing, and I don't know that any one site has the whole collection, but a lot of these have fortunately been preserved.

A note to the long-timers and the historical detail-oriented: I'm not going to do much fact-checking on this post. I'd like to get to the build. Feel free to add any historical facts, details, or corrections in the comments (but be nice!).

These can be downloaded for free, and you can read them online or print them out. It's interesting to go through and see where or when some of the ideas we now find common practice in model rocketry originated.

If you print these PDFs out, they should print in the original size. This is particularly helpful if you want to try and build one of the many rocket designs published by Estes in the 1960's and 1970's. Some plans use parts and tube sizes which are no longer produced by Estes (though you may find something similar through Semroc at eRockets.biz - you can always email Randy Boadway and ask. Sometimes he has made custom parts for people), but a lot of plans use still-common parts or tubes.

Instructions are pretty simple, and if you've put together a few kits, you should be able to follow the plans.


The Big Bertha was originally published in a 1963 edition of the MRN - Volume 3, Number 2 (click here for the PDF). A printout of the page would make a nice, framed wall hanging, I think. But if you're building a rocket, you need the printout for the fin templates, which you will cut out and trace onto some balsa sheet.

While I planned to make the rocket look as close as I could to the original Bertha plans, I'd make a few minor changes.

I would follow the fin templates exactly. These were of a slightly different shape than the current kits. Things change over time, due to plans being re-drawn, or tools used to cut parts wearing out over time and changing shape (this is particularly true of balsa nose cones), or what have you.

The motor mount from the original Big Bertha plans

Early instructions called for motor mounts being assembled with the centering rings attached to either end of a coupler. I guess they wanted more strength back then, or felt this would give better alignment. From what I've read, they'd sometimes get stuck halfway in when the glue would seize up. But I almost considered giving this a try. In the end, I decided against it. I would do a standard, modern motor mount - two centering rings and a motor tube, without the coupler.

You'll also notice there is no motor hook mentioned in the original plan. Presumably, you would keep a motor installed in the rocket with a wrap of tape, either friction fitting the motor into the tube, or wrapping tape around the base of the motor and motor tube.

That's fine to do, but I prefer the convenience of a hook, so I decided to include one.

These plans also predate the trifold paper shock cord mount common in today's Estes kits {sometimes referred to as a "teabag mount" because of its resemblance to a tea bag). Instead, two slits were made in the rocket body, and a shock cord was passed through from the back to the front and secured in place.


I really have no idea how they did this. That looks like some tricky weaving to me, threading that shock cord from back to front from the inside of the body tube. I would find that terribly frustrating. In any case, I didn't want to mar the rocket by cutting slits into it, so I'd use an internal shock cord mount on my Bertha.

One thing I was unsure of was the nose cone. I wasn't exactly going for 100% historical accuracy with this rocket, but if I had been, I'd have had some questions about the nose cone.

The current Big Bertha kit comes with a plastic, elliptical nose cone which is about 2.5 inches long (not counting the shoulder), and notably, it isn't pointy.

In the old days, of course, all nose cones were made of balsa, not plastic. The part, as listed, is called BNC-60L. BNC for "balsa nose cone," 60 for the fact that it fit a BT-60 body tube, and I suppose L... because it was long.

A couple of rocketry suppliers sell a BNC-60L today - eRockets.biz with their Semroc line, and Balsa Machining Service.

The plan drawing shows a nose cone which is nearly elliptical, except that it's got a slight point on the end. Is it an ogive? Is it a pointy ellipsis (if that's a thing)? I don't know, except that it's a different shape than on the Berthas I'm used to seeing. Does the drawing in the plan accurately represent the shape of the part Estes was selling at the time, or did it differ?


One thing that's sure is that nose cones changed shape over time, as parts used to machine them either changed through wear, or were replaced, or the parts themselves were redesigned either for aesthetic reasons or maybe even to save a little bit of balsa.

The current Estes Big Bertha kit uses a 2.5 inch elliptical (non-pointy) plastic nose cone. Estes stopped selling that cone as a retail part a couple years ago, when they started selling a new 3-pack of BT-60 cones.

A few vendors sell Bertha-style balsa cones. eRockets.biz sells a BNC60-L, the part listed in the plan, and it's 3.1 inches long. The image shows it as a non-pointy elliptical cone. They also sell a BNC60-MS. It's about 2.6 inches long. Balsa Machining Service and Aerospace Specialty Products also sell the BNC60-MS, though they're slightly different lengths. Balsa Machining describes it as the Bertha cone. This may represent another era of Bertha cones.


Now Vern Estes' original Big Bertha definitely looks like it has a longer nose cone than the current one. In pictures I've seen online, it really doesn't appear to have a pointed tip, though things sometimes look deceptive in photographs.

Detail of an image of Vern's Bertha
from NARAMlive.com

So, I'm going to guess, at this point, that the prototypical Big Bertha, the one you'd have built from the plan in the Model Rocket News, using parts purchased from Estes available in 1963, would have been about 3.1 inches long, maybe pointy/maybe not. And if I'd have intended to build a historically accurate 1963 Big Bertha, and had done all of this research beforehand, a 3.1 inch nose cone is what I'd have settled on.

But it was a lot of information to digest, and not being sure about any of it, I went with a guess. I decided on a 2.6 inch nose cone, which I would attempt to make myself. If that failed, I'd go online and buy one.

I figured I'd have a well-made, scratch built model rocket which most people would look at and simply say "That's a Big Bertha" without nitpicking nose cone length or historical this or that.

Which is what I did. In the next post: making the nose cone - from scratch!

Click here for the next scratch Bertha post!

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Wednesday, January 9, 2019

Saturn V Standing By


I buy a lot of my Estes rockets and motors from AC Supply. They discount most Estes stuff at around 40% off, and sometimes more.

I've been waiting... and waiting... for the latest release of the 50th Anniversary Saturn V 1:100 scale kit to show up on the AC Supply website. This new release is supposed to be even more detailed than the last, and comes with a lunar module (for display only - it doesn't fly!).

Still, I needed at least one spare Saturn V in case I make a major goof building the one I managed to pick up before they were discontinued early last year. But I didn't want to pay retail - rocketry is expensive enough!

The Saturn V 1:100 scale kit is finally available for pre-order on AC Supply! It's well priced at $53.99. It should ship in a few weeks' time.

AC Supply offers free shipping on orders within the continental US over $100, so... you know... you could order two of them and have them delivered free of charge! (I did - but it's my birthday, so if Mrs. N00b asks... this is my birthday present to myself.)

Here's the link.

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Sunday, January 6, 2019

Stickershock Is Returning!



Mark of Stickershock23.com has decided, after many supportive messages, to return to business! This is excellent news.

On Stickershock's Facebook page, he posted:

I want to thank each and every one of you for the VERY KIND AND SUPPORTING WORDS
I would love to thank each person one at a time.. but I it would take us days..
I know I dont post here as much as I should.. I WILL TRY TO POST MORE OFTEN STARTING NOW!
Yes the go fund me page is still up and I BELIEVE its working. I have had many ask how they can donate and help.. That would be the way to do it..

https://www.gofundme.com/stickershock23

Thank you for all that have donated, it has been very helpful,

STICKERSHOCK23.com

Ok heres the big news.. I WILL BE OPENING THE STORE AND WEBSITE VERY SHORTLY.. (just gotta get with my webmaster to get it done) We will be back open for business hopefully within the next 24 hours.. thank you for your patience!

there will be some small changes.. again MOSTLY to how custom orders will be handled and Priced!

QUICK BREAK DOWN..

My design time will be $50.00 an hour (minimum 30 mins)

THIS WILL BE FOR ALL CUSTOM REQUESTS. I may ask for it up front, be prepared for that when contacting me please..

I HAVE THE RIGHT TO WAVE THAT FEE AT MY DIGRESSION.. (I will wave it for MANY things.. such as VERY simple changes, CUSTOMER HAVING ART OR ALL INFORMATION READY TO GO!!, IF its an item I would probably add to my website etc!! )

I will NOT charge for simple changes.. "hey can you make this decal... but in green instead of blue" Yep no charge.. " can you change the serial number to XXX.YYY" YES NO CHARGE..

PRINCES ON SMALLER ITEMS WILL REFLECT MINIMUM CHARGES.. they are NOT priced by size.. they are priced by DIFFICULTY to create and to make.. and the smaller things are the more difficult they are to make.. PERIOD! YES I love doing them for you.. but they will cost based on these things..

I WILL BE CLOSED SOME DAYS! I know I have always tried to respond ASAP.. I CAN'T continue to do that.. FIrst I gotta have some time off just to purge etc. PLUS I have to have days to do Doctors appointments etc..

WE ARE looking into some new machines so we CAN do some more specialty things.. such as print whites chromes and silvers.. THIS WILL GREATLY reduce the costs of SMALLER reproductions etc. BUT IT IS VERY COSTLY (YEP MORE THAN MY LARGE FORMAT PRINTER) so it might be a while.. but its in the works!

for now this about covers it,

again WE WANT TO THANK ALL OF YOU FOR THE SUPPORT AND ENCOURAGEMENT, I SERIOUSLY was ready to just be done with it.. but all of you have really helped me realize how much you like what I do and how much you support us in return.. THIS TRULY IS THE BEST HOBBY AROUND!

Mark and Marian..
"Never fly naked"

So, there will be some much needed changes. Someone who does the work he does deserves to get paid well for it, and a one-person business operator still needs a day off.

In my original post on his closing, I had mentioned that his wife Marian has had a cancer recurrence, as I and others had assumed this was the reason for going out of business. Later, he wrote that this was not the reason for his closing, and I then deleted that part of the post. Still, you have a chance to help by donating to Marian's treatment fund on GoFundMe by clicking here.

We're glad you're coming back, Mark!

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