Sport Rocketry

8 MAY/JUNE 2017 SPORT ROCKETRY A year earlier, I had built my 1:48 scale Saturn V with the same paper (see Figures 6 and 7). The paper manufacturer heard about my project and came out to see the model and see how their pa- per could be used in a different way. They were so impressed that they asked what they could do for me. I told them about my crazy idea of building a Saturn V that is 14 feet tall. They didn't have this paper large enough, but they asked me to let them see what they could do. About a month later, they called me and told me that they had produced some paper 50" long just for me and were ship- ping it to me, so I was on my way! I created the airframe by taking one sheet 50" long by 23" tall and curling it and taping the two ends together to make a 23" tall, 16" diameter tube. This was actually the outside mold because I took another sheet that I cut slightly under 50" and placed it inside the first tube and made sure the seams did not align. I painted the inside of this tube with an adhesive that we use to create note pads. I then placed a third sheet (slightly shorter) inside the second one, again making sure the seams did not align. I turned the assembled tube on its side and used a long roller to smooth out any air bub- bles. I repeated this same process five times for a finished six-layer tube. Basically the tube was six sheets of heavy card stock lami- nated together. I placed a few of the foam board bulkheads inside the tube to keep the round shape. Once the tube dried overnight, I removed the outside mold layer. The tube turned out pretty strong but was still lightweight. Figure 8 shows an example of the tubing so you can see the thickness of the result. All of the tubes in my Saturn V were built the same way, even Saturn V boosting on five-engine cluster. Photo by Kevin Boyd. Figure 6. Everett and son Travis with the original 1:48-scale Saturn V.

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