The Broken Fin

The Thrifty Rocketeer blog continues....

 In the spirit of the holidays, we depart from our usual format for a Christmas tale...of sorts.

 Sunday morning, I slept in, but when I did get up, I walked to the front of the house, and spotted a package laying outside the front door.  This seemed odd to me, because our Saturday postal delivery is almost always after noon, and I had collected it.  But I wanted to see what was in such a large box, thinking if it had arrived on Saturday, surely someone would have seen it and brought it in.

 I was a bit surprised to discover that it was a large box from Estes Rockets... taped up and clearly labeled to me!  Now the box was crumpled in one corner, and a deep hole had poked through the corrugated cardboard box, but not very large.

 I brought the box inside and set it on one end, slicing open the sealing tape with a pair of scissors. I reached in an extracted the air pillows, and discovered the boxed Super Big Bertha rocket!  To say I was surprised is the least. 

 I kept emptying the box and discovered three more things... 
  1. A split orange adapter for 29 mm motors, for use with the Super Bertha
  2. A baggie with a parachute, shroud lines, a "Never Fly Naked" sticker and some CG/CP stickers
  3. A cobalt blue rocket ornament from Estes Rockets.
I looked twice at the ornament, just to make sure my eyes weren't playing tricks on me. Yes, that's what it was.  I had never had one before this season, but I'm certain that's what it was.

I figured out pretty quick that this box was from a fellow rocketeer, but I wasn't sure why it had come.  There were almost 35 overlapped postage stamps on the box, plus a post office cancellation stamp for $0.00  so I figured that he either paid for it himself, or somehow shipped it federal express the 30 miles to my house.  Then I began to wonder how he got my address, since our club doesn't keep those records.  Slowly it dawned on me that the club president had asked last week for my address, ostensibly to send out Xmas cards.  That's the connection.  And maybe he had hand-delivered it Sunday.

I wrote a note of thanks on Facebook and posted it.  And then I set to unpacking the baggies.  And something caught my eye.

Again, that cobalt blue ornament didn't quite look right.  I opened the package, and it slid out... all parts of it.
Yes, one of the 3 fins was snapped off.  

It was a clean break, but I couldn't figure out how it might have happened. Surely the corner of the crushed box wouldn't compress such a small item enough to have cracked it.  And the punched hole in the box couldn't have trapped the small ornament to shatter it.  I just would have slid away.  Then I remembered several of the air pillows were popped also.  I had just overlooked them.

I looked around and spotted my package of 3 BSI Super Glues in the Ziploc baggie with four desiccant packages in the bottom.  I selected the medium gap filler CA and opened the bottle.  Yes, it was sluggish, but the glue started to flow to the nozzle.

I carefully positioned the rocket with the broken fin up, and coated the exposed edge.  I held it for a few moments, and the fin fell right over.  No adhesion.  I re-positioned it again, and held it for a minute.  I set the rocket aside with the broken fin up.  It fell off again.

I swallowed hard and realized this would require a Xmas miracle.  I again re-positioned the fin, and this time held it in place for two minutes... not being willing to move it or let go.  I held my breath. When I gook my hand away, it stayed in place.  

A minute later, I couldn't breathe anymore, so I took a breath and looked again at the rocket. The fin held, and stayed upright.

A Christmas miracle!

I left it alone for another couple of hours, and waited for it to fully cure.  No signs of any trouble now.

I began to think about reporting it back to Estes as a "CATO", but quickly abandoned that.  I am CERTAIN that they would replace it or share another, but it really didn't matter.  It will look great on my mantle or Xmas tree.

It was just a Christmas miracle that I wanted to share with my friends.

(PS: There was NO damage to anything else in the box.  All the important stuff was fine.)

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