What did you do rocket wise today?

Looking good Rich! Looking forward to seeing this bird fly!

July Launch day at QRS...

It was an advertised public launch so there were a more than 100 looky-loos...

I put 3 up: Estes V2 (D12-5) to ~130m, My scratch built UpGoerV (D12-5) to ~290m, and my Kraken clone (D12-5) to ~200m...

I popped a fin on my big bertha putting the C6-5 in, so we used it as a static test demonstration to show folks up close what happens in the air...

Internal fillets on two rockets. I'm a little too lazy to mask off and do the externals at the same time...

So I wanted a way to lay the rocket flat, but I didn't have a narrow enough level area. Then I had an idea. Used the AV bay coupler and put the two rocket fin cans together so they would lay flat without tipping. Plus I did both rocket's internals at the same time. If I was really ambitious, I'd do the externals too, but as I said earlier, it's a lazy day...

It was yesterday but reached my max altitude to date. 7,500' with a CTI K750 in a Wildman Drago 4XL.

jeff2space said:

It was yesterday but reached my max altitude to date. 7,500' with a CTI K750 in a Wildman Drago 4XL.

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And it was a wicked flight! I need one of those K750s.

Filleting the QCC explorer.

And took a picure of my right index fingernail.
Anybody want to guess the cause of this rocketry-induced ouch from Southern Thunder? (the outline is a hint)

ouch, soldering iron?
Rex

djs said:

And it was a wicked flight! I need one of those K750s.

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I was impressed by the K750 also. Been holding on to it for 2 years.
Bong tried to eat my rocket but I got it back. Landed in a small "open" area surrounded by trees.

Rex R said:

ouch, soldering iron?
Rex

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OW no! Now that would have really hurt. Good guess though

Think flatter. If it was a soldering iron, I think it wouldn't have slid under there as far.

flaming bamboo sliver/ nichrome wire*
Rex
*and these complete my 3 guesses

Rex R said:

flaming bamboo sliver/ nichrome wire*
Rex
*and these complete my 3 guesses

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Oh man, you are burning hot close with that Nichrome wire guess.

Any other takers?

fiberglass splinter. Gotten a few of those before (although not so deep)

djs said:

fiberglass splinter. Gotten a few of those before (although not so deep)

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Ooh, got colder again

I've done this with a jumper pin before. Not fun at all.

Drove to Geneseo NY for an L2 attempt at the MARS monthly launch.

Mascow Frenzy flight on a J270 was successful! Thanks to Nat (wingarcher / UpscaleCNC) for helping me find the rocket in the corn!

Chris

Rex R said:

ouch, soldering iron?
Rex

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djs said:

fiberglass splinter. Gotten a few of those before (although not so deep)

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dhbarr said:

I've done this with a jumper pin before. Not fun at all.

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For the reveal, if you take a white-tip Estes solar igniter, and hold it over the image, you'll see it is a perfect match for the impression in my nailbed.

I was in a hurry to clean up our area and went to pick up a collection of igniters with my fingers Claw machine style.
No idea how this was possible, but one of them was PERFectly aligned in the bunch to smoothly slide right underneath the nail. It hurt more removing it, but that Bea any other alternatives. No sign of complication and it stopped stinging after a day or two.

Nytrunner said:

For the reveal, if you take a white-tip Estes solar igniter, and hold it over the image, you'll see it is a perfect match for the impression in my nailbed.

I was in a hurry to clean up our area and went to pick up a collection of igniters with my fingers Claw machine style.
No idea how this was possible, but one of them was PERFectly aligned in the bunch to smoothly slide right underneath the nail. It hurt more removing it, but that Bea any other alternatives. No sign of complication and it stopped stinging after a day or two.

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I've got a good idea as to how good that feels. When I was in the USAF there were various components that required safety wire on the aircraft. Most of the jobs called for .032" Safety Wire, but electrical connectors, like that used on the Anti-Skid Sensor on the B-52, called for .020". I was stationed at Minot AFB, ND, and we wore gloves year round! One thing you can't do with gloves on though is properly twist safety wire. In the dead of winter it was a race to do the safety wire job and get your gloves back on before your fingers got so cold you lost your dexterity. It never failed, somewhere during the process you'd end up sticking yourself with the end of the loose safety wire. Only you wouldn't know you'd done it until you thawed enough to get feeling back in your fingertips.

I picked up (2) 3" x 40" FG body tubes and a nosecone yesterday. Today I am ordering some parts and designing a 75mm minimum diameter on open rocket around the AT M650W.

Got the pin to complete the set!

Started testing the idea of using Openrocket at the highest degree of printing I am capable of, to make templates for dividing plates for making gears for my lathe.
I should be able to make machinery that lasts just long enough to build itself at a slightly larger scale at least once.
Printing on photo paper in 4x6 seems to really represent data well enough to use my manual dexterity and perfect vision to manipulate in a precision fashion against any cutting surface I have available to me at the moment, so I think I'm well served by learning these things. I'm actually so overwhelmed with awe at the things that are possible, but I don't think I would have even ever gotten started if not for this Forum! I moved twenty wheelbarrows of soil today! I match my activities on a calculated basis, and I can do work that makes folks shake their heads and pity me.
I'm quick to explain that I've never been better, and this level of excavation used to get done in a day in Iraq. As much as I love rockets, I think my first true love is digging into the ground with mattock and pick.
I have and use both of those daily now! I treat them like family, and nitrile gloves are still worn nightly to add Beeswax and Boiled Linseed Oil on all of my tools and equipment. We have rain daily here this year, so everything just wants to rust if you are not super diligent and careful! It sucks!!! I am very fond of shiny rust free equipment, so I am consuming lots of petroleum distillates and waxes appropriate for protecting metal, in all shapes and forms. Thanks to this forum I work with all of that stuff the same way I work with epoxy and fiber glass or composites. I learned some super life saving safety skills here! I so proud of my safety procedures, and when I demonstrate my attention to the risk assessment of anything to someone, they are always enlightened somewhat, and to my surprise, at the things I mention that they have neglected to even comprehend. I sometimes feel like a walking Public Service Announcement, but everything I have had to learn and comprehend to fit in here has really opened my mind to all the thing I can make and how well I can actually manipulate the world around me.
I'm off to the Races!
My graphics card can't jive with Sketch-up for some reason, but thanks to rockets I can still make really acceptable template on my printer, and thanks to my attention to detail, I might even do a decent job from time to time. Fingers crossed! Ha!





The fact that I recognize the severity of my living situation and can actually improve it entirely by myself is mostly owed to the inspiration I have always been given on this very website.
Thanks again RF Friends, and I just poured the first corner of my new two story garage, shop on the bottom, living space on top. There will be an elevator and spiral stairs!

I flew today for the first time in probably 20 years! A few weeks back, I bought an Alpha III starter set and built it up. Today, things finally aligned and I found a nice, empty park north of town, and sent that lil guy up 3 times on a pack of A8-3's, which, I think, was the perfect motor for today since it was a bit on the windy side. It's a long way off from an L1 cert, but 3 successful launches after not flying since I was a kid, I'll take it!

There is a video, I'm waiting to receive it. I'm not entirely sure if the audio picked me up or not. I thought I had a bad ignitor and right as it went off, I'm pretty sure you can hear it go "what the f-FWOOOOSH" so we'll see if it's postable haha.

Good to know you beat the crafty white-tip igniter! They definitely need the button held down longer.
(and they're just waiting for a chance to get ya. Just ask my fingernail from the posts above...)

Heh I saw that. Been there with various small sharp objects over the years. Not fun at all....

I burned through my 1 'free pass' igniter before I figured I just didn't hold the button long enough. Those things are.....not that great....

HandsomeRob said:

Heh I saw that. Been there with various small sharp objects over the years. Not fun at all....

I burned through my 1 'free pass' igniter before I figured I just didn't hold the button long enough. Those things are.....not that great....

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Which is why my Estes white tip igniters get dipped with non-conductive ematch pyrogen from Firefox.

HandsomeRob said:

It's a long way off from an L1 cert, but 3 successful launches after not flying since I was a kid.

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Maybe not as long as you think?

For me the interval between black powder launches was something like 1990 or 1991 to 2016. And those launches in 1990 were in support of a lab I TAed in grad school, so a more meaningful measurement might be the interval between the Gyroc I built and lost in middle school and the Gyroc clone I launched last summer. The elapsed time between that cloned Gyroc launch and first mid power launch was about three months.

As for what I did rocket wise today, I cut some parts for my L1 certification rocket. painted some on two mid-power rockets kit-bashed from an Estes Mammoth (I cannot quite match the metallic orange of the Mammoth tube), and finished the design for a simple and sturdy "Plan B" rocket (laid it out and simulated it in Open Rocket, set up the CAD/CAM in Fusion 360) -- in case my intended L1 vehicle doesn't qualify.



The local club is very good, and I've got a young daughter who likes to build things even more than I do -- so it was pretty easy to slip back into the hobby.

Nytrunner said:

Good to know you beat the crafty white-tip igniter! They definitely need the button held down longer.

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I really haven't had any issues with the new Estes white tip "starters", except for a few broken ni-chrome wires, but that was poor installation by me. I always grab one by the pyrogen tip, spread the wires slightly, stick it in the engine nozzle as far as it will go, insert the plastic plug such that it keeps the wires separated, then fold the exposed wire ends over 90*. That's all just good practice for installing them, but what really makes it all work is that I use a 12V 7A Gel-cell battery. Forget using the wimpy Estes controller with AA batteries!

HandsomeRob said:

...It's a long way off from an L1 cert, but 3 successful launches after not flying since I was a kid, I'll take it! ...

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Almost 5 years ago exactly I took my son to his first launch (and the first for me in 20+ years). My L3 project flies in September...you may be closer than you think!

Got a package from Loki, and had to lay out my next project...It fits! Also, put a swanky new sticker on the range box.

Cl(VII) said:

Got a package from Loki, and had to lay out my next project...It fits! Also, put a swanky new sticker on the range box.

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That's purdy.

I saved half of my rocket collection from the 6" of sewer water that flooded my basement last night. Old combo sewer and we got 5.5" of rain in less than an hour! Flooded again at 11:00 am today. Took off work to pump the water out of my basement and clean and sanitize the floor.