The Agony of Defeat

I receive the Tour De Deuce's on 7/2/04 and was happy to try to put them in the air on 7/4/04. We had calm evening and so my son and I rushed out to our local field which had been hayed and set up. I decided I would just get going with one of the Deuce's (later to learn it was DW#2). I loaded it up with two Quest C6-5's and set up. Upon ignition, which my son pushed the button for, only one motor lit and it came off the pad about 10 feet turned at a 30 degree angle downward and flew into the ground. The ejection separated the rocket from the nose cone and there she lay. Broke in two!

Upon impact the DW#2 broke through at a stress point just above the fin-can. The rocket had already been repaired "above" this break, as there is a coupler that appeared to run to within inches of the top of the body tube. Also below this point is where the motor coupler was. A BT60 Coupler was glued in place and the tube was pushed back to where it met the fin-can.	The loosened fin was lifted so that CA could be put under it and then clamped to dry in place. The tube joint was then soaked in CA to harden the paper tube. Everything was then ground with a Dremel and 100 Grit paper to take off the high edges. It was then re-CA soaked. A very thin epoxy coats was placed over the existing fin fillet to secure up that crack.
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Bondo Glazing compound was added. I went ahead and fixed a couple of the fin wounds while I was at it.	The glazing was sanded down to a minimum simply to allow the proper filling. I kept the sand to only the fin-can and blue area.
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Plasti-Kote Filling Primer was then used to further level/smooth things out. You can see how I protected the upper section. The tape was above where I sprays so that it didn't make a definite line. I then feathered it out.	Working around the motor tube was a bit tough, but this side really needed some work. This took about 4 coats of primer to take out as many flaws as I could. My focus was on the tube break. I didn't focus too much on the fins, but did clean up a couple of the dents. The primer was sanded back with 400 grit so that as little primer was left as possible.
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I then coated the fin-can and damaged area with Krylon White primer (it had looked like it was originally done this way and I didn't want grey primer to change the final color). I then target sprayed the yellow-fins. I also did a very light spray of the upper body/nose cone to "freshen it up".	I masked off the yellow sections and sprayed the blue to finalize the repair. The rocket looks good.
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The Thrill of Victory

Well, after repairing the damage to DW#2, I decided to get out there and give it another shot (After charging both my 7.2V batteries, just in case).

First I loaded the DW#1 (right) with two B6-2's. Didn't want it to go too high. It launched perfectly! It was still going up when the ejection fired (and then the second) and ejected the parachute for a quick descent and retrieval.

I was pleased that I captured the picture as well. I may finally be getting used to this new Minolta. Shutter speed was set to 1000 with focus at infinity and auto aperture.

I next loaded what perhaps was my nemesis, DW#2 (below). Looking spiffy after the repairs, I loaded it with two Estes C6-3's. As I loaded it onto the pad, the wind shifted from South to West. What's this? Why now?

I made a slight pad adjustment but really wanted to keep it close to straight up.

We did the count down and varoom. Both C6's lit! It didn't fly as straight up as the DW#1 and flew out over the field. I started running to it. Ejection as close to apogee as possible and the rocket dropped fairly quickly. I reach it and inspected it. No damage.

The thrill of victory! The thrill of Vermont!

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