Centuri Tiger StreakThe Tiger Streak is one of the kits from the waning days of Centuri, the time period when parts and designs were being shared with Estes because of the common Dana parent company. The Tiger Streak is the fraternal twin to the Estes Apache-2, and always interested me because it was built using Estes parts. I've been looking for a lightweight two-stager to fly at B6-4 Field and since I've had the plan for the Tiger Streak printed off for several years now, I think it will meet my needs nicely.
I bought the laser cut fins from Semroc earlier this spring. As you'd expect, they're nicely done, with excellent, hard balsa and sharp features.
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Booster build (2012-10-03 17:57:06) Pretty easy, this. Unless you screw up like I almost did.  Since the Tiger Streak fin marking guide is missing in action, I went looking for another BT-50 rocket that also had a three fin setup. I tried the Estes Apache-2 first. No luck. Tried the Estes Alpha. Ditto. I finally settled on the Astron Shrike. Perfect.
Uh, no. I already had the fins marked on the booster tube when it struck me that the Shrike was a 4fnc bird. In my mind, I heard Homer Simpson. DOH!! Luckily, I was alone. In the end, the Estes Astron Constellation became the donor, and except for some extra lines on the booster, everything turned out great.
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Fully finned (2012-10-04 07:12:26) I've had trouble with past two-stagers because the fins failed to line up on the booster and sustainer. Since these are meant to look like a seamless set, I wanted to make sure they were as close to perfect as possible. To that end, the laser cut fins make that a lot easier, but I rigged up a fancy custom rig to make my chances of success even greater.
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Now it looks like a rocket (2012-10-05 06:53:37) Like the rest of the project, the motor mounts were scrounged from various shop junk, in this case probably leftovers from one of the Red Arrow Tube Assortments http://redarrowhobbies.com/kits/body_tube_assortment/body_tubes.htm that I've bought over the years. I'm due for another one. It didn't occur to me that the motor tubes might be different sizes, but I can handle that kind of diversity. Sustainer is the standard 2.75" while the booster is 2.25".
The finished booster.
As you can see from the dry-fit, it's very close to being flightworthy. The launch lug will go on this morning, so that I can spray on a coat of primer this afternoon.
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Finally........progress! (2012-10-24 20:54:28) Scant time to work on this of late, but I had some time in the last couple of days and managed to slog my way through the prime, Fill & Finish, and sanding parts of the build. I first sprayed the bare balsa and body tube with Valspar primer, sanded, reprimed, sanded some more, slathered on the first coat of Fill & Finish, sanded more, slathered more, and finally added the last coat of primer. I wasn't completely sure which orange I was going to go with, flourescent or metallic, but it became a moot point when I couldn't find a metallic orange at Hobby Lobby. I settled for Sunburst Orange and a black metallic. The first coat of orange should hit tomorrow.
And just for something different, I actually remembered a launch lug for a change.
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Painted, but..... (2012-10-28 00:03:53) Not Painted Butt. That would be gross. Orange went on yesterday, and the black today. Both nice colors, but they don't work together for me. I think the metallic black would have worked better with metallic orange. Whatever the case, the paint is done except for the nose cone. Somehow I convinced myself that it was supposed to be black. Well. I convinced myself WRONG! It gets sprayed tomorrow, then I get to see if the decal I printed just looks big, or is big.
Not the greatest of pictures, but it's midnight. I should have taken a shot of it masked, but I forgot. Profuse apologies. It was a rough day.
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FINI! (2012-11-12 20:12:43) Yeah, I know. Finally, eh? The weather cooperated this weekend, so I got the nose cone painted, then got the decals on tonight after dinner. The decals were from a PDF, but printed slightly oversized. I had to cut a notch in the wrap decal to allow for the launch lug. There was some overlap, so the area around the lug isn't perfect, but from ten feet on the pad, it'll look pretty decent. I picked up some A8-0s from our onfield vendor on Saturday, so I'll be keeping an eye on B6-4 Field for a launch opportunity in the coming weeks.
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What You Can Do
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Todd Lewis (December 26, 2012)