What did you do rocket wise today?

Made lots of progress on my Patriot Teardown/Rebuild, and even did a Open Rocket Sim just for kicks.

Should have two deliveries on the porch today, one from Giant Leap (Aeropoxy and a large reinforcement coupler) and one from FleaBay (couple small Estes rockets for possible Upscale projects)

ChrisAttebery said:

Wow, those rings are great. Were they cut on a water jet? I'd love to see a picture of it when it's assembled.

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To tell you the truth I don't know what toy he cut them on. The shop he worked in, then supervised for the last 40 years has everything you can imagine in it for cutting an fabricating metal. All the way up to a 12' x 42' bed bridge mill. The two 8' x 12' bed laser cutters are the coolest bits though.

I ordered the rails today, and will hopefully be able to steal some time over the holidays to get everything cut, tapped and put together.

I have worked on this thing last week. It measures 31 inches from tail to tip, and right now it weighs 8.8 oz and I need to add AV Bay/tracker/Recovery.

Maiden Flight will be on a H400.

Spotted this Error in one of my Books about Military Jets, aptly titled "Military Jets" by Robert Jackson.



That's a Martel AS 37, not a Matra R.530!!!!

I drooled over the reloads from Loki Research that arrived recently. I can't wait to get some time off to finish the rockets these are or.

I continued to fund Tim @ Apogee's daughters' college educations by buying some kevlar, mylar streamer materials, and his Model Design book. Finished that off by ordering a Firefly altimeter from PerflectFlite.

I vacuum tested a Eggtimer to check deployment. Only pulled enough for 681 feet. Since the main deploy was set at 800 it tried to fire main and drogue at the same time. LEDs shut off, but the "charge" Xmas lights never glowed. Will rewire the charge battery like the photo in Chris' instructions. I may have tried to get too smart by half. (Happens all the stinking time.)

[Cut and paste from last night AFTER Comcrap went down]

Picked up the Ridgid tool box at Home Depot for my motors and hardware. It's really slick.

Took delivery of my Wildman Punisher, Aeropack retainer, Rocketpoxy order, and a bonus...my Aeropoxy Light order from the same UPS truck. A twofer! Naturally I unpacked both packages, stashed the epoxy in the warm house, checked the Punisher for all parts (check!) and did a little test fitting. Not sure how I will attach the metal tip as I my mitts won't fit up inside the nose cone but I'm sure there will be a build thread soon and someone will enlighten the rest of us as to the technique.

Worked a bit more on the Polecat Goblin nose cone alt bay and ran a few simulations to puzzle out the first flight reload. Settled on the a CTI I350 for a nice mild boost up to 1600' on the test flight. The follow up will be on my favorite CTI J316 (pink!) for my L2 cert flight up to 1800'. Both reloads will fit in a 38-5G and leave room for the chute...stubby rocket ya know?

Paid for some Dr. Rockets Millennium hardware (2 cases, closures)

My first Tip to Tip glassing of Fins.



All done!

o1d_dude said:

Naturally I unpacked both packages, stashed the epoxy in the warm house, checked the Punisher for all parts (check!) and did a little test fitting. Not sure how I will attach the metal tip as I my mitts won't fit up inside the nose cone but I'm sure there will be a build thread soon and someone will enlighten the rest of us as to the technique.

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My punisher has a plastic tip for the nose cone. As a matter of fact the nose cone I got isn't even fiberglass. I was a little disappointed by that since my first wildman kit really impressed me.

Four pak special of the Pro-Series kits that Estes had on sale arrived. Time to bash 'em. I'm thinking super-scale Mean Machine and some short-fat "Big Daddy"-like ones.

T34zac said:

My punisher has a plastic tip for the nose cone. As a matter of fact the nose cone I got isn't even fiberglass. I was a little disappointed by that since my first wildman kit really impressed me.

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Huh. I'll have to check the nose cone tip. Thought it was metal but didn't take it out of the plastic vacuum pack.

Attended the LUNAR BOD meeting last night.

Today, I picked up a bulk pack of A8-3 from HL with the 40% off coupon. Talked to a dad (uncle?) who was looking at rockets for a 12-year old. Gave him a quik spiel about launching safely in CA (including not buying booster motors!) recommended a good first-time builder kit (of what they had in stock) and told him about LUNAR and the launch this Saturday.

BTW the LUNAR LPR launch is currently a "GO" - with all the regular caveats about weather and checking the hot-line for last minute changes. If you're going to attend, come say "Hi" - I'll probably be at Safety Check most of the day with a stint as LCO

Got the components for my L3 and cut the fins.
:grin:
https://aksrockets.blogspot.com/2014/12/l3-parts.html?m=1

Alex

Got some Plastic Piping at the hobby Shop that looks like I'll be able to use to make the Homing Antenna for my TALOS Nose Cone.
Dry-Fit Mock-up.

Prepped a rocket for my first club launch tomorrow. Will keep it simple and just use an A8-3 as I want to primarily see how things are done out there and, as it has been raining all day, the field is going to be a bit muddy I am sure.

o1d_dude said:

Huh. I'll have to check the nose cone tip. Thought it was metal but didn't take it out of the plastic vacuum pack.

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Definitely not metal. I checked. Looks to be made from the same material as the nose cone.

Also tried sliding the stainless closed eyebolt down inside the nosecone and threaded the nose cone on it. I could only thread it about 2/3 of the way without some method for holding onto the bolt. I imagine with the shockcord and quicklink attached, I could probably jam a dowel or a square length of wood into the nosecone and hold it in place while I thread the nose cone. More experimentation is needed.

I bought some motors at lunch today(it's great when the vendor brings his trailer to lunch). When I got home I prepped 4 rockets for tomorrow's launch.

MichaelRapp said:

Prepped a rocket for my first club launch tomorrow. Will keep it simple and just use an A8-3 as I want to primarily see how things are done out there and, as it has been raining all day, the field is going to be a bit muddy I am sure.

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And drat....launch was just scrubbed. Oh well....guess I'll have to spend tomorrow morning building more rockets.

o1d_dude said:

Definitely not metal. I checked. Looks to be made from the same material as the nose cone.

Also tried sliding the stainless closed eyebolt down inside the nosecone and threaded the nose cone on it. I could only thread it about 2/3 of the way without some method for holding onto the bolt. I imagine with the shockcord and quicklink attached, I could probably jam a dowel or a square length of wood into the nosecone and hold it in place while I thread the nose cone. More experimentation is needed.

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Yeah I had the same problem. I've been having a lot of issues with that tip. I almost got to the point of deciding to epoxy it.

I was boring. Literally. With a boring bar.

ChrisAttebery said:

I bought some motors at lunch today(it's great when the vendor brings his trailer to lunch). When I got home I prepped 4 rockets for tomorrow's launch.

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I got up, prepped a couple of rockets for the launch today, made sure my field box was stocked, then called the LUNAR hotline. Launch has been scrubbed due to rain in the area. Guess I'll take the boys bowling.

rbelknap said:

I got up, prepped a couple of rockets for the launch today, made sure my field box was stocked, then called the LUNAR hotline. Launch has been scrubbed due to rain in the area. Guess I'll take the boys bowling.

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Wa wa waaaaa. Me too. I was just about to get ready to go when I checked my email.

-Started a new launch tower for my altitude breaker rockets
-about 1/3 way done my new launch controller

ChrisAttebery said:

Wa wa waaaaa. Me too. I was just about to get ready to go when I checked my email.

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At least I checked before I left instead of thinking I should after already crossing the dumbarton bridge...

ordered cow spot stickers from stickershock for the madcow cowabunga that's sitting under the christmas tree waiting for me. I hear it crying "please open and build me" but alas, I cannot heed it's siren song.

I'm celebrating the recovery of my "YouBee!" It spent more than a month in some pine trees. But, now it's safe in the back of a pickup truck!

A pair of newlyweds, honeymooning by hunting in the woods, found it. Honest.

-- Roger

Launched some rockets & took my NAR L2 exam. Had 1 motor failure, an AT F42-8. It just fizzed on the pad. Definetly cracked after attempted launch. Motor went in with ease but needed pliers to remove it.

timbucktoo said:

Launched some rockets & took my NAR L2 exam. Had 1 motor failure, an AT F42-8. It just fizzed on the pad. Definetly cracked after attempted launch. Motor went in with ease but needed pliers to remove it.

View attachment 249370

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You got lucky. When we had a motor split it kept burning. G80 blow torch.