The Nike booster to Apache sustainer transition is built up from coupler tubes, centering rings, and plywood stringers.

The paper transition shrouds are glued in place and used as a form to contain the foam injected between each pair of stringers.

The transition as it looks before foaming and glassing.

Sorry-I failed to take any photos of the foaming and glassing process.

After the transition piece was foamed and fiberglassed, I applied a layer of microspheres/epoxy putty. After this was cured, I fit the transition into a special set of centering blocks and turned the transition final shape on my wood lathe.

This closeup showh the inevitable small air pockets and low spots left after turning off the excess microsphere putty. I filled them with red auto body scratch filler, then sanded it all smooth while still in the lathe. Big imperfections can be filled with microsphere putty if done first before using the red stuff.
Note: A regular carbon steel wood lathe chisel is not up to the task of shaping microsphere/epoxy putty. I use a special chisel I made that uses carbide machine tool inserts.

Here's a photo of the sanded and primed transition piece along with a laminated Poplar wood nose cone I made to replace the original balsa wood nose cone made at the beginning of the project.

Back to Nike-Apache project page.

Back to Jim Ball's Launch Pad.