Making a "Tintin" Rocket on Mini-Lathe and Mill

I've been making a series of model rockets on lately, using the mini-lathe and mini-mill. Most of them have been somewhat 1950's/Flash Gorday inspired, with either tritium inserts or miniature LED flashlights inside to make them glow in the dark.

I decided to make one inspired by the Tintin rocket a birthday present for my brother, since he liked the Tintin books growing up. (I read them too, but, at the time, prefered Asterix.)

Materials

Since I was planning to paint it anyway, I decided to stick with aluminium (6061). I used one piece of 7/8" rod for the main fuselage, 1/2" rod for the feet, and 2" x 1/8" bar for the legs. Also some 1/8" stainless rode for the antenna and some clear Alumite to fill the nose-cone.

The Fusalage

The main fusalage is made in two parts: the nose-cone which is about 1 1/2" long and has three portals, and the body, which is about 4 1/2" long and solid. (The portal are not a feature of the rocket in the Tintin books. If you want to be more correct, you can save yourself some trouble and make the fuselage as as single piece. But, as I said this is intented to be "inspired by" the Tintin rocket and not a replica).

First the nose cone was cut and faced. Then drilled out to a depth of about 1" and threaded with an M10-fine thread. (Sorry for mixing units, but those were dies and taps I had handy).

Next I started on the body. The section was cut about 1" more than the final length. I turned down a section about 3/4" long down to 1/2": this was to hold it by and got removed later. Then, on the other end turned and cut a screw thread a little over 1/4" long:

I put the two parts together, blued, and scratched in some reference marks. (I wanted the portals to line up with the mid-points between the legs.)

Next, I switched to the mini-mill to drill the portals. I used a rotary table in in to make them at 120 degrees to each other. Finished with a 5/16" end mill:

Then mounted the body on the mill and milled three slots for the legs, 1/2" long and 3/5" deep using the 1/8" end mill.

The two parts together:

Next, I wrapped the nose cone with tape and filled it with Alumite resin:

The resin needs at least 24 hours to harden. Fortunately I accidentally uploaded a photo of Winnie along with the photos from my phone for this project, so we have something to look at while we're waiting.

Done waiting. The nose is ready for the next step.

Next I drilled some holes in the acrylic to accommodate some tritium vials. In this case I decided to go with three smaller vials of different colours, one for each window.

At this point the two parts are put back together and go back to the lathe to finish. Most of the hard work is now done.

Back on the lathe, I drilled a hole 1/4 deep for the antenna.

Then I started a series of cuts, at different angles, using the compound. First cut at 40 degrees took the longest.

Then I started doing more cuts, reducing the angle in 5 degree decrements:

When I got close to zero degrees, I moved the body forward in the chuck. This is where the 1/2" end section came in. On the back half cuts were much shallower, in the range 1-5 degrees.

I finished off with emory paper and cut off the end stub. Finally I added the antena using a spot of green loctite.

Shock Absorbers

The shock-absorbers/feet were made in a similar way to the body of the rocket, though simpler and also more rounded on top.

First I cut three pieces of the 1/2" rod, faced them and turned down a 1/2" section in order to hold them in the chuck.

Next I milled the slots for the legs, 1/2" long and half the thickness of the rod:

Then back to the lathe for shaping. For the shock-absorbers I shaped the bottom first and then the tops.

Legs

The lets were made out or the 1/8" by 2" aluminium bar. I started by cutting three blanks, milled the edges to be square and parallel, and then glued the three parts together using four spots of superglue.

I used the mill to roughly shape the block of leg pieces with a series of cuts at different angles. (A vertical band saw would have been ideal here, but I don't have one and am running out of space.)

Final shaping was done with a file in the vice, before breaking the legs apart:

Then I did a quick pre-assembly to check that all the parts fit together and looked about right:

The legs were finished off with wet/dry emory paper and a Dremel tool. I also used the Dremel to round the top edges of the legs where they fit into the body, otherwise there would be a gap:

Assembly and Painting

At this point all the individual pieces were finished:

I assembled using "extra-time" appoxy and did a little more cleanup:

It was tempting to just do a little more polishing and leave it like this, but I stuck with the original plan to paint it.

I masked the antenna and portals and then gave it three coats of white enamel paint using an airbrush:

When it had dried thoroughly, I wrapped the rocket with several rings of 1/2" masking tape. Then cut six vertical lines in the tape, and peeled away alterntate squares:

Finally added several coats of red enamel, peeled of the remaining masking tape, and DONE!