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taiwanluthiers

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I'm sorry if I didn't do this at first.

My name is Tai Fu, some of you might know me, if you are from the Austin Area Rocketry Group (I don't know if it still exists). I think I met Bob Kaplow at a NAR event one time, don't know if he's still around. I got my L1 there.

I left the US back in 2003 and now I've been given permission to immigrate back here. While I was in Taiwan I have been building guitars and furniture and have ran a decent business fixing guitars for various musicians. It's not that good as far as money goes but it pays the bill. After 11 long years of being in Taiwan, the American embassy gave me permission (an immigration visa) to come to the US. I'll be arriving Dec. 2 in Los Angeles and will be staying with my parents until I get the necessary papers to live (SSN and stuff). I want to get involved in rocketry again because while I found it enjoyable to build guitars, there's a part of me that wants to fly things. So far all I could fly was bottle rockets and skyrockets for fireworks... and while they are fun I think building is like 90% of the fun. I plan to move back to Austin. I have an unfinished degree from UT that I want to finish, since I still think my future is in science.

Those who knew me back then probably remember that I was a Muslim who felt the terrorist attacks of the time was totally against Islam. I will tell you that I'm no longer a Muslim, and I must say this carefully because I don't want the Muslims that still knew me that now lives in Austin to hear about this... as they tend not to like former Muslims. I accepted Jesus into my heart and was baptised in 2003. Ever since then God has taken me on some weird journey that will end in me being in America, though I still need to hear from him about what his plan for me is in America. For now I felt that the thing to do is to finish the degree and become a Geologist. I may opt to get involved in a prison ministry if the church I end up going to has one.

I need to be careful as far as regs go, I will be admitted as a lawful permanent resident and I really don't need to give them any reason to deport me. I'm not touching guns ever again, quite frankly I'm not allowed to have them in Taiwan (actually no one's allowed to have them) and it has been fine, so I'm quite used to the fact that guns aren't something that the average people have access to. I may be able to have blackpowder guns (since ATF has said that they are completely exempt from the gun control act unless they could be readily converted to accept cartridges) but I'm not sure... In any case I just felt it's probably safe for me to stay away from guns until I become a US Citizen one day. (but I'm still concerned about having bp for ejection since everyone said to get a bp rifle, but I rather not if I don't have to)

Since it is nearing Thanksgiving, I'll be the first to say that I am extremely thankful that God gave me the chance to go back to the US legally, and that the government has the grace to forgive me for my past sins.

I found my NAR number in rec.model.rockets, it is 76089. I'll put it in my sig as soon as I can get NAR to confirm it. I'll be formally joining once I arrive to the US.
 
Hi :) I agree with you on waiting to make sure everything is ok for you to have a firearm, even a BP one. Your in a process that just means too much. As far as BP in rocketry you would probably be ok if you use a reload kit BP only and never accumulate any extra. Electronic is problematical, maybe someone could load the ejection charges... I don't know. But even then that will take you to 2nd level on the motor well ejection charge. Depending on your plan of progress that could be a while :)
 
Hi Welcome Back, good luck!

If you get into a club that is doing all levels of rocketry, and is lucky enough to have a vendor, you may not have to do anything but show up with well built rockets and CTI or Aerotech motor cases, that are nothing but empty tubes before and after flights. Just buy the motors you need for the day, (if someone won't GIVE you a gram or two of black powder for ejection charges for that day, I would be real surprised) and at the end of the launch walk away with totally inert safe rockets and motor cases.
 
By the way here's my website for the luthier business: www.typhoonguitars.com

I'm not really working in it and probably won't for the foreseeable future until I get things settled in the US. I pretty much started building guitars since I couldn't build rockets in Taiwan (well I could but I just won't be able to get the motor).

Worst comes to worst I could make the bp on site... ATF won't care but I am pretty sure range safety officers won't allow it. It's easy once you know how to do it (and just combining the ingredients isn't enough... the charcoal type matters a LOT followed by preparation technique)
 
歡迎回來

請告訴我,在台灣,有什麼火箭?

現在我正在學習語言學和民族語言,並想成為一名英語老師在任一台,或大陸(台灣是我的第一選擇)

上帝保佑!
陳吉

順便說一句:請原諒引起谷歌的任何翻譯問題翻譯
 
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I rather talk in English than in Chinese... especially google chinese is impossible to understand.

Forget about rockets in Taiwan... you can build it but you won't be able to get the engines, although you'll be able to get the chemicals to make the engines, making a successful one will not be easy. Add to the fact that large expanse of land is nearly impossible to find in Taiwan, and the proximity to China would mean that a L3 launch could start wars!!! On the subject of chemicals, they are freely sold to anyone no questions asked. This even includes dangerous stuff like sodium, white phosphorus, Picric acid, etc.. If you know where to go you can find any chemical you need, though the price will probably be on the high side. But if you don't want to do EX rocketry then you're SOL on that... can't import the engine/reloads at all. Actually I'm not sure how that works so you may need to do some digging.

You can probably do model rocketry if you know how to make bp motor... I made them, it's not hard but without a hydraulic press you're going to have to modify the size, and recovery is probably inconsistent. I made them for fireworks however so recovery is not an issue.

You could possibly do pyro though, but as a foreigner my concern is you could get deported if the government thinks you're up to something no good. Firework law is extremely lax (it is actually strict but laws in Taiwan are meant to be broken, enforcement is very inconsistent). If you could dress your homemade firework to look like consumer firework, no one will know the difference. People in Taiwan shoot them for anything so it is not uncommon to hear them regularly even in an urban area.
 
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I rather talk in English than in Chinese... especially google chinese is impossible to understand.

Forget about rockets in Taiwan... you can build it but you won't be able to get the engines, although you'll be able to get the chemicals to make the engines, making a successful one will not be easy. Add to the fact that large expanse of land is nearly impossible to find in Taiwan, and the proximity to China would mean that a L3 launch could start wars!!! On the subject of chemicals, they are freely sold to anyone no questions asked. This even includes dangerous stuff like sodium, white phosphorus, Picric acid, etc.. If you know where to go you can find any chemical you need, though the price will probably be on the high side. But if you don't want to do EX rocketry then you're SOL on that... can't import the engine/reloads at all. Actually I'm not sure how that works so you may need to do some digging.

You can probably do model rocketry if you know how to make bp motor... I made them, it's not hard but without a hydraulic press you're going to have to modify the size, and recovery is probably inconsistent. I made them for fireworks however so recovery is not an issue.

You could possibly do pyro though, but as a foreigner my concern is you could get deported if the government thinks you're up to something no good. Firework law is extremely lax (it is actually strict but laws in Taiwan are meant to be broken, enforcement is very inconsistent). If you could dress your homemade firework to look like consumer firework, no one will know the difference. People in Taiwan shoot them for anything so it is not uncommon to hear them regularly even in an urban area.

Thanks for the reply! Again, sorry about being forced to use Google Translate. I've only got two years of Mandarin under my belt.

I don't think I'll ever try to go for a L3, however as a teacher, I'd think that there would be some kind of club, or class I could get involved with.

All The Best!
Jim (陳吉 is the Chinese name I chose to prevent people from mutilating the pronunciation of my given name)
 
Well, Estes motors are impossible to find, or any other motors for that matter, so unless you got some imported (which I don't think you could do legally), it's impossible. All I've seen here are air/water rockets...
 
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