Building the Estes Xarconian Cruiser (Part 1) An auspicious occasion, ladies and gentlemen. I have this evening opened up the last of the kits from 2013 still in the build pile: The Estes Xarconian Cruiser #3223. (And if you want one yourself, go buy it now! Estes is having another of its sales — no, this isn’t a holiday ...
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Building the Estes Xarconian Cruiser (part 2) I’ve never been particularly careful about paying attention to weight during a build (mine or the kit’s); this time I think I’ll try going to the other extreme. I weighed all the parts in the kit, as well as the parts I intend to use instead of some of the kit parts. As mentioned ...
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Building the Estes Xarconian Cruiser (part 3) Back to the bench again. In the past I’ve once or twice used wood filler on uncut balsa sheets, then sanded, and then cut out fins, and it’s worked out pretty well. Of course the edges don’t get filled that way, you have to do them separately later, and it’s no good if ...
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Building the Estes Xarconian Cruiser (part 4) No, I haven’t forgotten I’m building this. Christmas is past and I have this week off, so I’m getting back to it, though. Not much to say about it. Before this week I’d gone ahead and glued up the main pieces of all four fins. On one, the top fin, two of the pieces did ...
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Building the Estes Xarconian Cruiser (part 5) As with the Photon Disruptor, the XC instructions have you build the motor mount early on but not install it until late. I’m not sure why. I can think of a couple of advantages but not necessarily ones the instruction authors had in mind. ((1) If you screw up the fins, etc., at least you ...
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Building the Estes Xarconian Cruiser (part 6) I cut the second intake tube. First time wasn’t a fluke. Go me. Then I applied thin CA — not as thin as it used to be, unfortunately — to the front and rear edges. These things will need more prep before gluing, but first, back to the fins. I glued the top fin on, ...
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Building the Estes Xarconian Cruiser (part 7) I love the smell of expiring furnace blower motor in the morning. When it’s 19°F. Oh wait. No, I don’t. For a glorious short time the furnace guy thought it was just a bad capacitor, not the motor. He was, alas, wrong. We have a new motor, the heat’s back on, and it’s ...
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Building the Estes Xarconian Cruiser (part 8) I didn’t intend to take this long a break from building. Maybe I’m subliminally slightly intimidated by this kit. Or maybe it’s just too cold to spend time in the basement. Anyway, here’s progress. Intake tubes sanded and glued on. One oddity I’d noticed, the bottom ...
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Building the Estes Xarconian Cruiser (part 9) Cold week, cold basement. Busy with other things. Excuses excuses. I cleaned up the pod ends with sandpaper. They were kind of gloppy. I should’ve waited until I got new thin CA instead of trying to use the thickened stuff. Then I did a dry fit. The slots in the pods were too narrow, which ...
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Building the Estes Xarconian Cruiser (part 10) If you’ve been reading these posts with bated breath, waiting in dreadful anticipation of the moment when I screw up royally, you can relax now. I applied fillets where I didn’t earlier: along the outboard pod joints, under the transverse top fin thing, along the intake tubes. Then I ...
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Building the Estes Xarconian Cruiser (part 11) After experimenting on an uncommitted motor hook, I decided to proceed with Operation Hookbender. I used two long nose pliers to more or less straighten out the motor hook, then bend the tip over. This would’ve been a lot easier if I’d had this idea before gluing the tail cone on. I ...
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Building the Estes Xarconian Cruiser (part 12) Chris Michielssen says the CG of the Xarconian Cruiser, with a C6 motor installed in the stock 18 mm mount, is about 7½” from the rear edge of the tail cone. I put a D12 in my 24 mm mount and found I’d need about half an ounce of nose weight to bring the CG ...
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Building the Estes Xarconian Cruiser (part 13)Finally today, I put the second color on the Xarconian Cruiser. Again without telling you about it, I’d put the first color on… which should have been white, and the second color tan, but for some reason I failed to consult the instructions and misremembered the paint scheme as tan and ...
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Building the Estes Xarconian Cruiser (part 14)It got up to 69°F today. Not a record for the date (that’d be 76°F; we might break the record tomorrow though) but a good deal nicer than usual for this time of year. Windy until mid afternoon, but in late afternoon it was fine painting weather. I’d decided to try a liquid mask ...
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Building the Estes Xarconian Cruiser (part 15)A really quick, photo-less post to let you know neither I nor the XC is dead. I’ve been occupied with other things, but I did a little work on it today. The khaki paint came out considerably less smooth and glossy than the white and blue and black, and there are lots of decals to…
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Building the Estes Xarconian Cruiser (part 16)I did a little paint touch up; I also painted black the front surfaces of the little bumps on the nose cone. Then decals. There’s a ton of them, and there’s a school of thought that there’s too many. Me, I’m with Mae West on this one: “Too much of a good thing can ...
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Building the Estes Xarconian Cruiser (part 17)Clear coat, shock cord, done! Final weight without chute, wadding, or motor: 5.3 oz. Just a little less than two years after I bought the kit and slightly under one year since I started building it. More to the point, this completes the last of the rockets in the build pile or in progress as ...
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