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Category: Scratch Built Rockets

This is Part 2 of the 4" Upscale Build of Estes' Patrol Cruiser Excalibur. Click back to Part 1

Part 1 of the build saw the airframe being assembled, now in Part 2, we're going to look at the steps used to make the upscale nose cone.  The first stage of making the nose cone can be found here where I made the mold.

The first step of fabricating the nose cone was to coat the inside of the mold with wax.

Patrol Cruiser Excalibur 4" Upscale (Build)

With the wax applied and allowed to dry for a period of time, a layer of gel coat was painted into the mold.

The gel coat should give the external layer of the finished nose cone a nice smooth surface. Gel coat is allowed to cure to tacky.

Strips of fiberglass cloth is then layered and epoxied into each half of the nose cone mold.

With the required number of layers applied, the two halves are then mated together and secured with bolts.

Patrol Cruiser Excalibur 4" Upscale (Build)

The nose cone is allowed to cure for a few hours, after which, the mold is opened.

I found that I needed to jam wedges between the two halves to open the mold.

Patrol Cruiser Excalibur 4" Upscale (Build)

The nose cone is removed. At this stage you can see the 'flash' or pieces of resin and fiberglass cloth

that has slipped out between the sides of the mold.

Patrol Cruiser Excalibur 4" Upscale (Build)

The flash is removed.

Patrol Cruiser Excalibur 4" Upscale (Build)

And some imperfections along the seam line fixed with filler & sanded.

Patrol Cruiser Excalibur 4" Upscale (Build)    Patrol Cruiser Excalibur 4" Upscale (Build)

Click ahead to Part 3 of the build