The above photo is one of the vernier engines. While test fitting it to the booster side I noticed that the back was not quite long enough. I cut some 0.040 stock and used Plasti-Zap to attach it. I then sanded and filled it to fit the rest of the part. I’ll do the same for the one that goes on the other side.
Each of the vernier engine housings have a pressurization line that runs from the top of the housing to a location on the side of the booster. One has a short line that pressurizes the fuel tank and the other has a long line that runs to the top of the booster that pressurizes the oxidizer tank. The lines will be a 1/16 inch plastic rod. The tip of each line has a pointed attachment that is slightly larger than the line. I started the attachment by cutting a short section of 3/32 rod and drilling a hole in the center for the 1/16 pressurization line. Here is a photo to illustrate.
I found a good picture of the real item and the side that attaches to the tank is flat sided rather than the whole thing being round. To represent that I glued a piece of 0.05 stock to the side of the rod. I used Tenax to attach it. When that dried I cut is off flush and did the same to the other side. Here is a photo of the start of the process.
When that was done I used Tamiya putty to fill the gaps in the bottom. When that cured I sanded it flat and started shaping the tip to a taper. Here is the first one with a penny for size reference.
I temporarily added the smaller rod to show the size difference.
There is some more smoothing that is needed but it is looking good. I need to make one for the other side. For the long one that basically runs the length of the body I’ll need to add some stand-offs along the length. I’ll use some short bits of 0.06 square rod for that. The short one is short enough that no stand-offs were needed.
When I these get done I’ll attach them to the body before painting. But before any of that happens there is also the cable run with the rate gyro housing that needs to be added. That will be the focus of the next post.
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Luhman-ations 