Smart move on the 54mm. I scratch built my L2 rocket with a 54mm MMT and have been very happy with it. I'm sure it would have be a closet queen if I had put a 38mm tube in it.
What are your goals for your L2 build, besides the obvious one of obtaining your L2 cert?
My L2 goals were:
- Refine my av-bay design techniques. I built a functional bay for my L1 rocket, but learned enough to never design one like that again.
- Learn how to fiberglass paper tubes.
- Learn how to do tip2tip fiberglass on fins while keeping a good airfoil and smooth paint.
The rocket turned out a little heavy at 10 lbs without a motor but it has been a work horse. It's taken a ton of abuse and just keeps on ticking. I'm getting ready to do a third paint job on it because the paint is getting really beat up with 18 flights on it and I had to glass a new tube for the payload and it needs paint also.
I don't really regret glassing the LOC tubes I made mine out of, but it didn't quite break 10K ft on a Pro54 L935 like I had hoped. It probably would have if I had not glassed it. I'm sure it would have handled the Mach 1.2 on that flight. I'm not sure it would have handled all the abuse and hard landing it's survived so far if it hadn't been glassed.
Good luck on your build!