Estesbashers midpower builds- from throw away to 55/24

I thought some of you guys and gals would like to see how you could build a mach buster using parts from balsa machine. With one of the estes BT-55 cones, And yes some of you low power guys will like this build.No fiber glass or carbon fiber will be used on this build.Other than g-10 for the fins. It will be kept lite, I don't care how high this rocket goes. I just want to see how fast I can get one to go on the G-80.

The rocket is built and the weight comes in at 4.7 oz. so I'll post pictures and explain what I've done and why. because you know after all it is rocket science.

Spec.

17.5" long

29mm.

4.7 oz.

.049 G-10 fins

Root cord. 4.5"

Span.1.25"

All the parts. is what I've done for the body tube. It's a double wall body tube, the length for the body is 11" so I cut the same for the BT-55 coupler tube. As you can see in the picture I have a short length for the nose cone and the coupler tube on it 1-1/8".
I coated the outside of the coupler tube with Gorilla glue, then I let it dry and after I sanded it down with 220 grit.

Then I glue the two tubes. Coating the inside of the BT-55 tube, and the outside of the coupler tube. I just feel that when this glue dry's you come up with a rock hard body tube.
On the motor tube. This fits on the inside of the BT-55 coupler tube. For the shock cord I cut a short length from a spent motor case. I left enough room in the motor tube, so that I could glue some Kevlar to it and glue this into the motor tube. make sure you give yourself enough room to install the motor when your done.
I also pulled that outer layer of paper from the motor tube and sand it. I just wanted to get a good glue joint on these.

An interesting build. Throw-away meaning you might never find it again. Bring it down on a 6 foot long Mylar streamer and you increase your chances of finding it.

I wonder if a single 29mm tube, and three fins would be better. Less materials, easier construction, less weight, minimum diameter = faster, higher, cheaper.

You can find the BT-55 cones any where. What about the 29mm cones? I've seen people asking about them all the time. Guess you could get one of the 12 dollar cones from PML.
Then I see in your post where you think just because it has less weight it's going higher. NOT!

Estesbasher said:

You can find the BT-55 cones any where. What about the 29mm cones? I've seen people asking about all the time. Guess you could get one of the 12 dollar cones from PML.

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You might want to try Apogee. They have two 29mm based rockets that I'm aware of (the Aspire and the Diamondback). I looked, and confirmed it... they've got 'em

scsager said:

...
I wonder if a single 29mm tube, and three fins would be better. Less materials, easier construction, less weight, minimum diameter = faster, higher, cheaper.

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I was wondering the same thing; why the doubling ? Is this the prototype ? Did you sim this ? Just wondering, I think this little hotrod is pretty cool.

Hymmmm... This reminds me. Gotta get started on that little 29mm bird you put together for me!

A nice page on this I found and bookmarked years ago:

Mach 1 on Mid-Power

https://mcfisher.0catch.com/other/mach1/mach1.htm

scsager said:

I wonder if a single 29mm tube, and three fins would be better. Less materials, easier construction, less weight, minimum diameter = faster, higher, cheaper.

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I made one of these. I called it "Single Use", but someone found it after its F flight and returned it. So it got a G-77R. When the flame went out it cloaked. It was crazy fast before it went invisible though.

Estesbasher said:

You can find the BT-55 cones any where. What about the 29mm cones? I've seen people asking about them all the time. Guess you could get one of the 12 dollar cones from PML.
Then I see in your post where you think just because it has less weight it's going higher. NOT!

Click to expand...

He said in the OP that he doesn't care about height. He has "The need, the need for speed". You are right that lighter doesn't necessarily mean higher, but it does mean faster.

Winston said:

A nice page on this I found and bookmarked years ago:

Mach 1 on Mid-Power

https://mcfisher.0catch.com/other/mach1/mach1.htm

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This is an interesting read, thanks Winston.

samb said:

This is an interesting read, thanks Winston.

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The Impulse Aerospace/Rocket Vision Mach Buster was really a scream on a G55. I launched 4, and got one back (a year later, someone found it), and lost that one on it's second flight. And it used 24mm motors.

Semroc sells a couple of nice 29mm balsa cones that match their heavy duty 29mm tubing perfectly.

The Semroc cones are $4-$5 each.

The Apogee Aspire will rip on a G80. It does a diappearing act. Got mine back, flew with many lp motors and three flights on the 8 second F10.
Fourth flight on F10, disappeared into a swamp/lake. Was looking pretty ratty by then but really enjoyed the rocket. Kurt

With the input, you guys have made me rethink this project. As for this rocket yes it was a prototype (first of it's kind) So what I'll do with it is turn it into some thing else.
Do a different nose cone with less weight. cut about a 1-1/2" from the body and put in a 24mm mount I can fly on the 24/40 or the 24/60 case's
I 'm going to put the altimeter two in this rocket so I'm going to try and do every thing as possible to get it back. We have a launch coming up on the 8th of Nov. So I want to see if I can get it done before then. I'm going to order that glass cone from apogee, That Ktesh showed me the link to.
Then I'll take Scager advice build it with less components and use 3-fins. I did run a rocsimms file for one. I just had problems getting it to show a 29mm mount.
I would put in the balsa machine 29mm thin wall tube and it would show a 24mm mount, So I had to feed in all the spec. on the Od. and Id. and then it finely showed up as a 29mm mount. still can't find the file to change it from Ft per second to MPH. see if I can attach the rocsimms file.

file

View attachment 29mm machbuster.rkt

Estesbasher said:

With the input, you guys have made me rethink this project. As for this rocket yes it was a prototype (first of it's kind) So what I'll do with it is turn it into some thing else.
Do a different nose cone with less weight. cut about a 1-1/2" from the body and put in a 24mm mount I can fly on the 24/40 or the 24/60 case's

Click to expand...

Don't reduce the size, it's already small enough to be hard to fit a 24 mm motor and recovery that won't burn up. It will help to use a reload and reduce the ejection charge to half or less, but if you want to be able to use an Estes BP motor, the ejection can't be reduced and a small rocket like that will tend to be too hot to keep your hand on after flight. With a non-DMS G80 with the fixed ejection, the pressure would be so high you'd need a shock cord to absorb that at least half the size of the rocket, or incredibly strong attachments to handle the full force.

I did get to fly this rocket today, On the G-80-14
Not bad for a mid-power rocket.

And guess who got video....
[video=youtube;aBRv5b-oGIY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBRv5b-oGIY[/video]
They're scattered throughout there.

Good flights!

Alex

Thanks for posting that Alex. I've never been able to get a good video of my rockets in flight.

Estesbasher said:

All the parts.

is what I've done for the body tube. It's a double wall body tube, the length for the body is 11" so I cut the same for the BT-55 coupler tube. As you can see in the picture I have a short length for the nose cone and the coupler tube on it 1-1/8".
I coated the outside of the coupler tube with Gorilla glue, then I let it dry and after I sanded it down with 220 grit.

Then I glue the two tubes. Coating the inside of the BT-55 tube, and the outside of the coupler tube. I just feel that when this glue dry's you come up with a rock hard body tube.
On the motor tube. This fits on the inside of the BT-55 coupler tube. For the shock cord I cut a short length from a spent motor case. I left enough room in the motor tube, so that I could glue some Kevlar to it and glue this into the motor tube. make sure you give yourself enough room to install the motor when your done.

I also pulled that outer layer of paper from the motor tube and sand it. I just wanted to get a good glue joint on these.

Click to expand...

You used Gorilla Wood Glue, right? Next time try the Polyurethane type. I roll it onto the coupler and wipe the inside of the rocket with a swab wetted with water. The moisture activates the glue and it bubbles up and fills the gap completely. Even if scraped off during insertion it will still foam up then fill the gaps plus it never grabs. I just started a BT60 based rocket but I'm using 34" Giant Leap tubes. I also have the full length coupler. What I like to do is use a long stuffer tube. Then the upper centering ring on the stuffer tube butts up against the coupler in the upper section. I cut things so that the nosecone sits on the coupler as well as the body tube. The lower stuffer tube will be so long that I'll use a 3rd ring in the middle for support.

I'll have to try that next time Dave thanks.
Here is a picture of the 29mm rocket I built.
You can see both of these rockets fly in that video Alex posted. Titled Blip G-80, The first one is the 29mm and the second one is the BT-55.

The 29mm. rocket I got the finely weight 1oz. less than the BT-55 and that was with the fiberglass cone. I'm sure I could of got a little more with the plastic cone.
And I may have to build one just to see how much lighter I can make it. For the most part I wanted to see how much weight the double wall bt-55 would weigh, and it's about the same as doing one with the carbon sleeve. With the double wall rocket I kepted the body tube the same od. as the nose cone. But I never used a retainer on it. Where as if I use the carbon I can kept the od. of the retainer the same as the od. of the carbon. The glass cone from apogee cost 17 dollars, the cones on the BT-55 you can get four of them for 6 dollars. I wanted to show how I put the cone together on these rockets, you put a once of weight in them that little loop the cone has on them for the low power rockets would never hold.So the first thing I'll do is cut the bottom from the cone leaving about 3/8" on the shoulder. wash the inside of the cone with soap and water.

Then I use the exacto knife to drill little holes around the shoulder. For my shock cord mount I use some 500 pound kevlar I got from https://www.emmakites.com/Wholesale-kite-line_c365?page=2 just with a simple loop
on one end I'll epoxy the other end to the tip of the nose cone.
When I poured the epoxy into the cone I added about 1oz. of copper BB's to it. I'll use the 29mm tube as the coupler if you cut the white paper from the tube it will slide past the shoulder on the cone and hit on the inside of the cone about 3/8" up in the cone. So when I glue them I use JB-quick weld I'll spread it just above the shoulder on the inside for about 3/8" slide the 29mm. Into the nose cone. Then I just take a hair dryer and heat the cone up around the shoulder. In the picture you can see I had a short piece of BT-55 coupler tube. With the shoulder on the cone and the length of coupler tube, You have to make the BT-55 tube those two lengths. When I glue these with JB-quick weld I'll do both at the same time. With the holes you drill in the shoulder of the cone they act as rivets, and the weld sets up to where if you let it set up enough it will just peel right off with a knife.

Once I know that I have enough weight in the nose for the rocket to be balanced. I'll pour some two part foam on the inside to lock every thing into place.
With small amounts I'll end it when it gets into the 29mm. tube. In that picture you can see the vent hole I drilled, This is where I set my altimeter