Brief:
Used 24mm motor mount, reinforced fin joint w/fiberglass.
Modifications:
Seeing that Quest Icarus uses 18mm motor mount, and has a payload section, I
think a A/B/C motor would not have enough power to give this an impressive
flight if a payload were used, so I decided to give this rocket a little boost.
I added a 24mm tube instead of a 18mm, because now I have opened up this rocket to the power of D/E/F and possibly G. The centering rings were designed for a 18mm motor, so therefore I took a trusty old xacto knife, and cut it to fit a 24mm tube. It's really not that hard, just take a 24mm tube, trace around it with a pencil, and cut INSIDE the line. just keep cutting/sanding until the 24mm tube fits. Use epoxy to attach the centering ring, because you want to be able to allow the rocket to take the kick of a G motor.
Then I went to attaching the fins. I've used epoxy to attach the fins because G motor exerts a lot of thrust, and I hate seeing the rocket with broken fins. So if you want, take some fiberglass cloth, cut into tapes, and epoxy them to the joints, so after it cures, the joint will not move at all.
Finishing:
After the modification with fiberglass fin joint reinforcement, the finishing
becomes a pain. Since the epoxy seems to be hard to sand, I have to keep
sanding tirelessly and achieving little result. I went to constantly applying
primers (and it keeps wrinkling!) then painting, but after a long work, it paid
off, and you can't tell the joints has been reinforced (that is until you try
to break the fin joints that is)
Flight:
Motors: After this modification, the model will become heavier, so use motors
with low delays, such as a A8-3 and B6-2 and so on, DO NOT use upper stage
motors, because I made that mistake and the rocket pranged! First flight I used
A8-3 and it was perfect, but the second flight I used a B6-6 and it didn't
eject until it was 3 inches into the ground!!!
Summary:
Quest makes okay rockets (better than Estes) but they don't have 24mm....
(05/01/98) The Icarus was the first Quest kit that I have ever built and quite frankly I think I got it by accident when I transposed some numbers on an order. But I put it together. It's a level 2 kit with large payload section and dual-parachute recovery. And like all Quest kits, it uses 18mm motors (A-C). The kit was packaged fine in a long plastic bag with a colorful picture of ...
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