Things you wish you knew when you first got into rocketry...

ArizonaSportsman said:

I wish I would have known I would get back into model rocketry 20+ years later after I first started. It would be awesome to have my original rockets (or at least one or two of them from years ago).

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+1

I *really* miss my (original) Interceptor. Came out beautiful, definitely my favorite of all time. Wouldn't mind having my Trident and Beta back as well. *sigh*

Gary Byrum said:

I suppose my earliest memory comes as, not everything should be flown with a C6-5.

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YES!!!!!!!!!!

Wow! Great minds make bad choices sometimes TALON. You and I share the same experiences.

Neil, we never know that we will become BARS. It's amazing that we do really. Life gets in the way and we're out for a while. But a craft is something you usually come back to, when you have the time. I wasn't able to keep the rockets from my youth, but I did keep some the 2nd time around. This would be around 1985. Some of those got remodeled or shelved, and some of them are still flyable. One of those shelved models from the 80's got a re-do, in that, I am presently building an upscale version of it. It's a 2 stage design that flies very well, but the new one gets to pack the Estes 29mm motors.

You could call this my 2.5/3rd BAR event. Totally into it again.

Gary Byrum said:

I am presently building an upscale version of it. It's a 2 stage design that flies very well

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Hi Gary - just curious.....what model are you building? Any pics or build thread?

OregonBAR said:

Hi Gary - just curious.....what model are you building? Any pics or build thread?

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It's a design I came up with many years ago. I rarely do kits anymore, so you're not likely to recognize it. What I have to show is only colored drawings in 2D. These were painting options I had been working on. The main airframe is BT 60 and the payload is BT 70. It'll be 51" tall when completed. Sorry, no build thread or pics on it. Probably go with option #4.

Gary Byrum said:

The main airframe is BT 60 and the payload is BT 70. It'll be 51" tall when completed. Sorry, no build thread or pics on it. Probably go with option #4.

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Very nice. You, of course, get the only vote on the paint scheme, but for what (little) it's worth, I'd probably go with #3, or #3's fins an #4's upper region.

Gary Byrum said:

Neil, we never know that we will become BARS. It's amazing that we do really. Life gets in the way and we're out for a while. But a craft is something you usually come back to, when you have the time.

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Although I haven't started my build yet (come on Amazon, I'm getting antsy here), I've already reached a level of obsessive interest that probably goes beyond what I had as a kid. Which is frankly kind of baffling to me, but hell, might as well run with it for now.

I think what propelled me towards it (and no, I'm not trying to make rocket puns here) was building Legos with my daughter, and remembering how much fun it is to *build* stuff. Then I saw a rocket launch at a local 4H Fair and, well, that was that.

neil_w said:

Although I haven't started my build yet (come on Amazon, I'm getting antsy here), I've already reached a level of obsessive interest that probably goes beyond what I had as a kid. Which is frankly kind of baffling to me, but hell, might as well run with it for now.

I think what propelled me towards it (and no, I'm not trying to make rocket puns here) was building Legos with my daughter, and remembering how much fun it is to *build* stuff. Then I saw a rocket launch at a local 4H Fair and, well, that was that.

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What makes coming back even more cool, is now we can afford and incorporate tools we either didn't have or weren't even invented yet. And we have more disposable income than we did as kids. I remember cutting grass for weeks just to afford that hi dollar $9.95 Saturn V at the hobby store.

Gary Byrum said:

What makes coming back even more cool, is now we can afford and incorporate tools we either didn't have or weren't even invented yet. And we have more disposable income than we did as kids.

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That's what makes it dangerous.

1. I wish I'd bought a razor saw and an accurate set of scales on day 1.

2. It's not exactly rocket science.

3. It's easier to build a rocket than it is to join a club and find somewhere local to fly it.

4. Components are expensive but there's usually a good reason why.

5. There's always one component that is essential for finishing a rocket and it's not available anywhere.

6. The opinions of rocketeers sometimes fly higher than their rockets.

SO.

jqavins said:

Very nice. You, of course, get the only vote on the paint scheme, but for what (little) it's worth, I'd probably go with #3, or #3's fins an #4's upper region.

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#3 was my choice before reading your vote, but I didn't think to vote for the upper region of other rockets. I just voted #3 on a whole. I do like all vertical lines on your combo vote.

I wish that I'd have started labeling my kit/cut body tubes a long time ago. When you have a build pile as big as mine, sometimes it's hard to remember what body tube was meant for what.

K'Tesh said:

I wish that I'd have started labeling my kit/cut body tubes a long time ago. When you have a build pile as big as mine, sometimes it's hard to remember what body tube was meant for what.

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Instead of labeling, I just put all loose parts back in the bag, or in a bigger bag if necessary, along with the face card.

I remember something that I forgot... I wish I knew that the Estes Scrambler/Eggscalibur nosecone (originally from the Enerjet Egg Crate), was not pre-sized for the Jumbo Egg. If you want the egg to fit inside that payload compartment, you need to trim the edges of the shoulder to allow for it to fit. Fortunately the problem was realized before I went out to the field, the egg was inside a plastic bag, and I remembered that very important saying...

Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

Most of my heavily flown models I had as a kid were eventually just worn out from the black powder residue build up. It would absorb moisture and soften the tubes to the point where just looking at them wrong would dent or crease them.

kathmorgan12 said:

Most of my heavily flown models I had as a kid were eventually just worn out from the black powder residue build up. It would absorb moisture and soften the tubes to the point where just looking at them wrong would dent or crease them.

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"Heavily flown rockets as a kid". Congrats! Trees, zippers, lawn darts, sideways & too high of flights ate most my Estes builds after about 3 flights.

LET. THE PAINT. DRY. If it says "recoat within XX minutes or after YY hours", wait YY+1day.

I've had a couple of builds where it's looking GREAT and everything's smooth and even and I say "well, okay, it looks dry, it feels dry, I'm sure I can hit it with a different color and OH GOD IT'S WRINKLING NOOOOO"

I actually had to go down to bare cardboard on one kit because of that.

Coop said:

Electronics are not scary.

Deployment bags are not scary.

Composites are not scary.

Lacquer >enamel.

Metallic silver finds fingerprints better than any three-letter government agency.

When you say, with conviction, "I won't fly anything past a(an) (impulse level)..." you're probably feeding yourself bovine excrement.

Just because you CAN doesn't mean you SHOULD.

Just because you CAN'T doesn't mean you SHOULDN'T.

Try something new on every build.

"Sometimes they break. Sometimes they get treed. Sometimes they get lost. Sometimes they blow up."

It's never too early to start considering recovery.


Later!

--Coop

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Did anyone else hear the song "Everybody's Free (to Wear Sunscreen)" when he listed that?

1. Don't get rid of that Styrofoam Estes shuttle glider. I want a fleet now!
2. If you have access to a laser cutter at school that is free to use, ABUSE the heck out of it!
3. Go back and join SEDS when I was a freshman in college.
4. Go back to that guy from Craigslist and buy all his HPR stuff, even if it meant debt to parents. (Got some good hardware for pennies on the dollar, but failed to think of all the stuff I could have salvaged. So many Estes kits!)
5. West systems big jar will save you money in the long run. Stop buying JB weld and Loc Tite packs at Wally World.