Junior Level One: 4" Patriot

as I recall the instructions call for an 1/8" hole, that is what I used for my MC 4" patriot L1 bird. if you can keep it under 2k the vent isn't really needed. I would suggest that you drill tap some 6-32 holes through the payload bay into the nose cone shoulder and secure the nose with some 6-32 button head screws, it makes life a lot easier. final thought (for this post) the more time invested in making it look perfect the greater the chances are that something Will happen to goof it up. once the button is pushed I guarantee that people will not be looking for flaws in your paint job.
Rex

Rex R said:

as I recall the instructions call for an 1/8" hole, that is what I used for my MC 4" patriot L1 bird. if you can keep it under 2k the vent isn't really needed. I would suggest that you drill tap some 6-32 holes through the payload bay into the nose cone shoulder and secure the nose with some 6-32 button head screws, it makes life a lot easier. final thought (for this post) the more time invested in making it look perfect the greater the chances are that something Will happen to goof it up. once the button is pushed I guarantee that people will not be looking for flaws in your paint job.
Rex

Click to expand...

Trust me, I care a lot less about vanity than functionality. That's really an afterthought.

I fixed the vent hole issue by cutting a piece of coupler large enough to cover the hole, then by jb welding it in place (its the only 5 min stuff I had). I then filled it with some wood filler and called that a day, I won't worry about a vent hole this time around.

That being said, the painting has started, and I am excited to finish!

That is a brilliant red, looks great! What red is that?

Nick@JET said:

That is a brilliant red, looks great! What red is that?

Click to expand...

I used the same type of glossy paint by the same company for all of the colors of the picture below.

This is what she looks like!!

Alright guys!

I've finally reached some free time this year, and am looking to finally fly this rocket. I am ordering a 3 grain case, as well as the drill delay tool. I also am going to add another rail button because I realized that where I mounted on of the buttons, it is held in place almost entirely with epoxy which does not sit well with me. I don't know if this is strong enough, so I will be adding a third on more forward for fair measure. I also am going to plan on flying with a 30" chute, which sims to a touch down at around 20 mph, with a 50" chute only showing marginal improvements in touch down speed.

I just need to secure the case and delay tool and find myself a launch site and I am good to go! I am looking into how to attach the chute with even string lengths, but am excited for the launch.

A little of a silly question, how lose should the coupler be on the rocket? I do not want to ruin a perfectly good flight because of some lack of sanding.

Thank you!

Personally, I dislike having three buttons. Two form a line; a third may end up off the line. If it's epoxy pooled inside your BT and feels solid it should be fine.


[emoji1010] Steve Shannon [emoji1010]

As Steve said, a third button is unnecessary on a rocket of this size. It can be detrimental in that it can jam if it is not in perfect alignment and/or the rail is dirty. Simply not a good idea.

Bob

Nice more teenage rocketeers yay!!!
Good luck

bobkrech said:

As Steve said, a third button is unnecessary on a rocket of this size. It can be detrimental in that it can jam if it is not in perfect alignment and/or the rail is dirty. Simply not a good idea.

Bob

Click to expand...

That seems completely valid and I can see the concern. My personal worry is that my placement of the buttons too close (about 8") will cause unnecessary torque and strain on the buttons, and since one is only attached with epoxy I would want to be more cautious than not. I feel confident the buttons will hold, I just would rather be extra sure by adding another, but if it creates more issues there is no reason.

You might want to remove the one in the middle, which I believe is the one whose mounting you didn't trust.


[emoji1010] Steve Shannon [emoji1010]

Hi, sorry if I have overseen something, but this picture looks like you are directly attaching tubular nylon to the hook over the motor tube.


If you use motor ejection, the heat of the black powder ejection can easily destroy the tubular nylon, since it is not heat resistant.
You have to protect it from the hot ejection gases, like you protect the parachute.
You could either use a nomex sleeve or replace the lower part with kevlar.

Steve Shannon said:

You might want to remove the one in the middle, which I believe is the one whose mounting you didn't trust.


[emoji1010] Steve Shannon [emoji1010]

Click to expand...

That is probably what I will end up doing. I just want to be extra sure that everything is done correctly on the rocket and I feel like the buttons most likely would be fine, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. (Its really the only thing that I haven't felt good about the entire build.)

@thomas
And I have been aiming to get a sleeve, I'm on top of it

Steve Shannon said:

You might want to remove the one in the middle, which I believe is the one whose mounting you didn't trust.


[emoji1010] Steve Shannon [emoji1010]

Click to expand...

This. This is what I would do in this case.

wow, great jop

Some Kevlar cord, a 3G case, and a delay adjustment tool just found its way to my porch today. All I need to do is connect the kevlar to the nylon, add that final button, and practice putting together a Cesaroni reload and packing the chute and I am ready to go!

Orion14ed said:

Some Kevlar cord, a 3G case, and a delay adjustment tool just found its way to my porch today. All I need to do is connect the kevlar to the nylon, add that final button, and practice putting together a Cesaroni reload and packing the chute and I am ready to go!

Click to expand...

My method for attaching nylon to kevlar... Take the kevlar, tie a loop on one end (I like the bowline knot). Push that loop through your eyebolt (u-bolt or whatever), then pull it up to just below the top of the body tube it's going into. Mark the line on the unlooped end even with the length of the looped end. Tie a loop on the unlooped end. Now both ends of the kevlar should be just short of the top of the body tube. Tie a loop on one end of the nylon, and attach all three loops together with a quick link.

To inspect the kevlar after flight, you can just spin the loop of kevlar around to look for damage, and if necessary, pull a new length of kevlar using the old.

wow , thats nice

K'Tesh said:

My method for attaching nylon to kevlar... Take the kevlar, tie a loop on one end (I like the bowline knot). Push that loop through your eyebolt (u-bolt or whatever), then pull it up to just below the top of the body tube it's going into. Mark the line on the unlooped end even with the length of the looped end. Tie a loop on the unlooped end. Now both ends of the kevlar should be just short of the top of the body tube. Tie a loop on one end of the nylon, and attach all three loops together with a quick link.

To inspect the kevlar after flight, you can just spin the loop of kevlar around to look for damage, and if necessary, pull a new length of kevlar using the old.

Click to expand...

I will try my luck with this approach, I feel confident that my connection will not be a point of failure. Does anyone have any good articles on packing the chutes? I have read several different methods but plan on using the Apogee Method that was in one of their newsletters.

I am looking at placing the final lug on some time next week, and depending on if the person running the launch responds to my email or not, the launch date may change as well.

The Cesaroni reloads are also a piece of cake, especially for 38mm so I feel confident that I can put one together just fine.

She flew today! Took off on a H144 from Loki for a Junior Level One Certification! The people out at JMRC are too cool, if any of you are on here thank you so much! I'll have a video up soon.

Congratulations on your L1!

Congrats, great looking rocket!

Finally got some free time to write about the launch!

The launch site was at Michigan's International Speedway which was about an hour and a half drive from where I lived, so nothing terrible. While driving there I noticed the weather was near perfect, very little wind. I pulled up to the launch site and was immediately greeted by some very welcoming people from the Jackson area Model Rocketry Club. They helped me, even loaning me a larger chute. Basically, they were awesome. The vendor for the motor walked me through how to use a Loki reload since I had come with the intention on flying on a Cesaroni reload. I was pretty nervous when I put the rocket on the pad, but also felt like the day had gone so well before that I had a good chance. The LSO made me stand in front of the table and subjected me to some pre-cert hazing which I thought was very funny. He even did a double take on the count down to try and shake me up a bit, which he absolutely did.

The rocket took off on a Loki H144 and immediately cocked into the wind, which was to be expected since this motor was a little smaller than what I would have wanted to have flown with resulting in a higher stability margin. All things considered, once it got moving the flight was straight, and looking at the video it looks like it rolled very little. The ejection charge went off right at apogee, and she floated down nice and slow. She peaked at about 1200 feet and at around 200 mph. The landing was great for the booster since it landed on grass, but the nose cone took a nice dent when it landed on a paved road. Nothing too bad, but another few feet and the landing would have been perfect.

Here's a video! Thanks to everyone who helped me out, I'm glad I accomplished something I've wanted to do since I was 14. On to the next project!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9F2r0C59v4&feature=youtu.be

Congratulations! Nice flight.

Very nice - bonus for being at the race track!