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- Dec 7, 2009
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Back in 2002 I did not have much extra money and wanted to do my L3. I ended up finding a bunch of scrap pieces of 'gas pipe' (used for under ground fuel tanks) tubing. It's an odd size..and made out of wound fiberglass. It was free. I made a nose cone mold (my first and it was really funky)
My L3 rocket...Speedy Gonzales .. was 3.5" diameter and 85" long. with a 75mm motor mount.
Here's the AeroPac newsletter with my L3 story on page 3 https://aeropac.org/Newsletters/v14n1.pdf
I crashed speedy on it's 45th flight. 40 of those flights were M motors..I'm not sure why it crashed..no event at apogee and way to fast when the main did deploy.
Anyway the above is just to explain this pipe can be used just takes some work and thinking to make rockets out of it.
It comes in 3 different sizes
I'm now making 2 identical rockets with 54mm motor mounts. These 2 rockets will be used to fly research propellants. I'd like to compare actual flights of a 'stock' formula to a 'slightly changed' formula. Both rockets will have dual recording altimeters also.
The first step was to make a new nose cone mold ..I sort of cheated and started with a plastic LOC 3" nose cone. I used some old 4x4 redwood post added to the 3" LOC to bring it up to the 3.5" diameter I needed. some bondo filler and the plug came together very quickly. The below photos show the plug once pulled frorm the mold. Some paint..OK..lots of paint and bondo stayed in the mold.
..more tomorrow...
Tony
My L3 rocket...Speedy Gonzales .. was 3.5" diameter and 85" long. with a 75mm motor mount.
Here's the AeroPac newsletter with my L3 story on page 3 https://aeropac.org/Newsletters/v14n1.pdf
I crashed speedy on it's 45th flight. 40 of those flights were M motors..I'm not sure why it crashed..no event at apogee and way to fast when the main did deploy.
Anyway the above is just to explain this pipe can be used just takes some work and thinking to make rockets out of it.
It comes in 3 different sizes
I'm now making 2 identical rockets with 54mm motor mounts. These 2 rockets will be used to fly research propellants. I'd like to compare actual flights of a 'stock' formula to a 'slightly changed' formula. Both rockets will have dual recording altimeters also.
The first step was to make a new nose cone mold ..I sort of cheated and started with a plastic LOC 3" nose cone. I used some old 4x4 redwood post added to the 3" LOC to bring it up to the 3.5" diameter I needed. some bondo filler and the plug came together very quickly. The below photos show the plug once pulled frorm the mold. Some paint..OK..lots of paint and bondo stayed in the mold.
..more tomorrow...
Tony