Stubborn...or dedicated scratchbuilder?

I have been scratchbuilding all my birds for a over a year now and I feel compelled to share with ya'll a somewhat amusing situation that has arisen in our family of rocketry. As it stands, I have a strong interest in scratchbuilding my rockets and the rest of the family(aspiring rocketeers, L1's, L2's and just plain know-it-alls) is really behind all, or at least most, of my endeavors. My last three HPR's have been scratchbuilt, however my last rocket(scaled version of Giant Leaps "Firestorm") is the rocket that is subsequently plaguing me the most. I have attempted L1 twice now and on both occasions it came-a crashin down. The first attempt wasn't my fault, motor puked and ejected early. As for the second attempt, a bad choice of delays and shockcord helped to provide some good entertainment for other rocketeers and spectators (Don't use underwear elasitic,even if it comes with your kit).

Fortunately on both crashes the fincan remains in great shape.....soooo....once again, I rebuild
I will attempt L1 again at the end of Nov. with the scaled Firestorm. Fact is, I will rebuild this rocket until I either succeed or there is nothing left of it. Yeah, I know. Everyone else is saying"Just go buy a kit and get it over with". Sorry guys....call it stubborness but its now bigger than all of us Whats more is, its not the ROCKET thats causing the problems ...its me! I realize that I need to learn a bit more about my delays, especially with this particular rocket and what better way to do it. At least I'm not crashing 100 dollar kits into the ground and I KNOW how to repair, seein how I scratchbuilt it in the first place.

$69'000 Dollar question: What would you do? Rebuild or Buy a kit?~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>>>=====> Fly High

Just use a Kevlar cord and a coupla pounds of BP! works for me! I just fill the gap right up to the top, then wrap a bit of tape around the forward closure and add some more! foolproof! unless you use too much..... that could lead to some problems. Go with yer scaled Firestorm (I want pics, I want pics!!!! what diameter is it?), get yourself a really good shock cord and load it up with BP! if you use too much, you get a wicked cool fireball coming out of the tube once again, I must stress the need for a blast-goggle smiley.

I almost always rebuild using as many components that I can finding in good shape...or almost good shape. Doesn't always end up resembling the original, however.

Just make sure you are careful in assembling that motor and check the delay against a sim. Try a Pro-38 if you want to tune it in.

More BP aint the solution for this rocket, geeesh.

Oh, and you got this from GL and it didn't have a Kevlar cord?????

My first few HPR birds were all kits, which allowed me to learn new techniques with new materials using never before tried building practices. It was a good step and taugh me much in the ways of HPR. MY L1 bird was a kit, but rebuilt after a first attempt, which worked perfect, but landed on a concrete-hard frozen plowed field and broke out a fin. That was a case where I did everything right, but mother nature took over. Then again, it was only 23 degrees outside at our TRA February launch...yea, I had it bad!

For a long time now though, I have scratch built my models, as there are not any kits I can find that are in my nitche as HPR Military Missile kits are far and few. Even those have been occasionally repaired after a cato or other probs.

Keep us up to date on your progress and good luck!

Carl

Rebuild...

As far as the launch, you already mentioned the issue with the delay. So the problem is a straightforward math problem, and that is, how long until apogee? Spacecad/rocsim should answer that problem. Put your design in there, and 'test' fly with various motor/delay combinations. Then pick the delay that will go at apogee.

Sure, it's $100 on spacecad/rocsim instead of $100 on a kit, but you should get a lot more use out of spacecad/rocsim, especially when you are scratchbuilding everything.

You can only decide the delay for yourself on Rocsim. SpaceCAD tells you the optimal delay at the bottom of the flight screen. it is great. With HPR RMS motors there ar only 3 delay times. S (short), M (medium) and L (long). looking at it logically, you can take a heavy rocket and say, "it will be a short trip apogee, so I should choose a short delay." or "I have a wicked light (minimum diameter or similar) model, and it will take a long time to get to apogee, so I better buy a long delay." it makes a lot of sense. a short flight a "short" delay. it is close to foolproof. I think a short is 6 seconds, a medium is 10 and a long might be 14 seconds. correct me if i am wrong. I think the firestorm is light and semi-streamlined, so I would go with a long, or maybe a medium for it. depends on the motor's thrust and burn time. Good luck. when your rocket breaks, just tell yourself "well, that is what epoxy is for, right"? don't waste money on a new rocket when you can reubuild your old one. it just doesent feel right to me to chuck out a good rocket, if it is fixable.

yeah man stick with the old one. Only so many things can go wrong and so far two have happened so that means only 999,998 more can. If you build a new rocket you start back at the beginning and there are 1,000,000 things that can go wrong


:kill:

Stay strong keep away from kits !

Sorry it has taken me so long to get pics of the scratchbuilt"Firestorm". Been kinda busy lately....This is a pic of the 2nd time I built it. You can be sure that there will be another picture when I get done building it for the 3RD TIME!!!!!

Te he. A touch shorter than the origional, dontcha think??? lol....

Actually it IS a "touch" shorter than original!! LMAO that you actually noticed..good eyes. After my first "Trainwreck" L1 attempt I had to cut it back 2 1/2 inches due to a zipper.Gosh, I can't believe you actually noticed that. The 2nd attempt was even more violent( pausing for a second to laugh) Never did find the nosecone(still laughing)....OK I'm done...No seriously, I'm just getting ready to go into epoxy & assemble phase, FOR THE THIRD TIME after the rebuild, or is that re,re,rebuild? Will go for L1 on Saturday Nov. 22@ AHPRA (Arizona High Powered Rocketry Association) event. Going up on AT I161 White Lightning with a "LONG" delay(RDK-15).

It may be a scratchbuilt version of GL's "Firestorm", but its been renamed to,"Deja Vous". Will post pics of L1 launch at end of Nov.

Hey, i have one of those I161Ws! I will be sure to post a picture of it taking my MB1 to 6K at .85 mach! How fast will it make the (now shortend. make sure you take some weight off and cut the tube shorter in the sims ) the Firestorm go? Watch out if it goes too close to mach. I hear there can be some disasters happening when a rocket slowly aproaches mach. I hear you gotta punch right through it to survive. I have no worries about mine shredding. you gotta gun? bring it over here and take a few shots at it! it will most likely still fly! the things a tank! Very heavy, too. Thats why it is staying below mach one. but not on a J420! I have plans to buy an adaptor and a timer and make a 2 stager out of it and my brand spankin new Raptor model. it will reach mach 2 and stay above mach one for about 5 seconds. the booster will be going mach for about 2, and the Raptor will be doing mach one for the rest of its burn on an I200W, and then some. Sorry, no pics of this flight are coming. Just a trail of smoke. Well, if I had the "short video" feature of my dads digital camera I will post whatever frames the rocket is in, but hey. what are the odds it will be in more than 3 frames of the video!!! Anyway, good luck with L1. You may want to glass it, to add weight and sturdyness. Thatway it will not break on landings, and it will PROABABLY not zipper as badly. Get one of those Zipper Stoppers from Giant Leap. I hear they are pretty good. Never tried one myself. A longer shoock cord might also be a good idea. and one of those things that hold the shroudlines in place so it deploys softer. Good luck, and put a lot of tracking powder and a beeper or transmitter in it, cause its gonna go HIGH!!!

P.S. I am not really sure how on earth I noticed that it was shorter..... Just looked a bit shorter than the origional I saw on GL website. I guess after watching rockets go up to thousands of feet for a year or two your eyes get a lot sharper!

Just putting the final touches on the scaled "Firestorm"/Deja Vous.The total length has been restored to its scale length of 57 1/2" and the BT was glassed and then lathe sanded. It was then re-epoxied to the new custom made coupler and epoxied in to the fincan(only thing that survived both crashes) Rocket weight and length have been maintained according to the original rocksim, everything else remains the same. This way I know for a fact it will fly perfectly(already seen it do so). Now if I can just get the "DOWN" part. Aerotech plays a major role in that procedure Ya' know, that old delay problem thing again. Thanks for your input Neil....and "I ALSO" wish the certifying age was lower too!!
I'll post some pics of the Deja Vous before I paint it so you see the glass job.....turned out really nice if I say so myself

Oh yeah,Istill have to finish the nose cone too....ohwell ....back to work

HPR cert for me is no longer a problem. My dad is now L1, and he now loves rocketry so he is looking at L2 birds! I am so proud of him!!!! I taught him everything he knows!! (well, I did not try to make him obbssesed with PML stuff, that was a fluke. DOH! ). Now I have several HPR flights in the lineup, and he will now buy HPR on command! if we already have the case for it.... He flat out refused to pay for half of a 29MM HPR system. POUT! I will just have to save up money for myself. so there. It still would be fun to be able to certify, but this is ALMOST as good. I can always take the sample quiz for L2 on the internet before I fly my first J, and call it done! Good luck with the cone. I wish my dad would buy a lathe...... He actually wants one of those, they are just too expensive.....

If you buy a rocket kit from hmmm.....lets say Pml....and lets say we'll spend about $50.00, tax included.(nothing real fancy,just a good sport rocket) Whoops,forgot I need epoxy($12.00).......gettin kinda low on sandpaper too($5.00).....and now that I think about it, I'm down to my last X-acto blade, better get some more ($7.50) Ya know what Neil, we just spent $74.50 !!! Here's the part thats really gonna bake your noodle. For $50.00 more, you can have a brand new variable speed lathe!! I paid $125.00 for mine at Harbor freight here in sunny Arizona. Now I realize that you may not have a Harbor Freight in your area, but I am willing to bet there is "some" other discount supplier of machinery where you can obtain a lathe for a LOT cheaper than you think.... It will pay for itself in less than 6 months if you and your Dad build rockets like I do, and I think you do.. Imean think about it, never again will you have to wait and wonder if you can get a certain size"anything" from"anyone" ever again....just draw ya up a sketch and out to the shop you go.The possibilities are literally endless.....

Do you have the link for the L2 sample quiz?


Chris

Certifying on a scratchbuilt rocket feels really good! Rebuild and fly again!

Pro38 motors can be adjusted to whatever delay you like. The adjuster tool has several pre-set options, and I've seen guys carefully drill half-way in between those options to get the delays they want.

By the way, "Déja Vous" would translate to "already you". The "haven't I seen this before?" thing is "Déja Vu", already seen.

OK. I rebooted. Now I can reply....
Here is the test. Hope it works.

Whenever my computer dies I cannot reply to anything untill I reboot several times. My guess is that my CAD programs disagree with it.....

The computer test is twice as long as the real one. 25 of those 50 questions will be on there.

Justy>Thank you for correcting me and my deplorable"French"!!! All I can think of is how glad I am that I haven't painted it yet!!:kill:

Neil> The link for the L2 test worked just fine.....much thanks( so, is Dad gonna buy a lathe?) I don't think Santa can fit that one down the chimney. I asked for a lathe for Christmas a couple years ago and thats what my wife told me....I live amongst the greatest comedians in the world.

We are moving, so we cannot afford a lathe. Well, we could if I was not getting a dog, but priorities, priorities!!! puppy comes WAAAY before the lathe. I can always just by my cones for now. Besides, I dont know if wood would like going over mach one.... kinda hot up there. Hope it wouldent catch on fire! It proabably wouldent, but I think fiberglass is the better option. What was your score on the L2 test? I love that thing. The only bad part is that it does not give you a "progress report". It just gives you the questions and awnsers. No score. At least last I chicked. anyhow, what was the real meaning of this thread..... Oh yeah, the Firestorm. Or Deja Vu... one or the other. Good luck, whatever you name it!

Will go for L1 on Saturday Nov. 22@ AHPRA (Arizona High Powered Rocketry Association) event.

Click to expand...

You doing L1 and me L2 on the same day, this could get interesting!

If you buy a rocket kit from hmmm.....lets say Pml....and lets say we'll spend about $50.00, tax included.(nothing real fancy,just a good sport rocket) Whoops,forgot I need epoxy($12.00).......gettin kinda low on sandpaper too($5.00).....and now that I think about it, I'm down to my last X-acto blade, better get some more ($7.50) Ya know what Neil, we just spent $74.50 !!!

Click to expand...

Dont ever do that again, if my wife finds out how much all this junk costs .....

L2 test;

https://www.markworld.com/tripolitest1.html

You doing L1 and me doing L2 on the same day,this could get interesting


And onward it goes........no underwear elastic this time. Using 3/4" Kevlar. Was too worried about zipper last time. Also seen video of George's L1 flight with his Minimag use elastic and fair well. Different rocket,different results I guess. Anyways, as I have said before, I am gonna cert with this bird if I have to rebuild it 100 times As for the delay,we are going w/RDK-15 (long) this time around. Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm reading a 10 sec. delay with an RDK-15. Went with RDK-11 last time, but as you seen it ejected early again,(we counted 3 seconds, whats up with that?) so now I don't know "what" to think about Aerotech delays and I just can't believe that I'm the only one having trouble with these!.Any suggestions sure would be welcome.....If it were up to me I would go with Pro38's but as it stands we only have AT reloads and delays,so we have to use those....

Wife won't have her Warlock ready for cert until Dec. She warned me about exposing Mfg retail price. Said,"Stop getting the guy in trouble will ya?"
See ya in a couple weeks Kevin.......
Chris Emich