Cabernut
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Oct 15, 2015
- Messages
- 1,384
- Reaction score
- 9
My goal is to see what I can build with $0 and with non-rocket materials that I find around the house. By non-rocket materials, I mean nothing that was originally made for rocketry.
I started with a Christmas paper roll tube which is 1.5" in diameter and 30" in length. I made fins out of the thin cardboard packaging for a cheap android tablet. I cut out 6x fin shapes from a paper template, 3 with the cardboard grain vertical, 3 horizontal. Then I glued pairs vertical & horizontal grained pieces to end up with 3x fins, 4mm in width, with reasonable strength.
For the motor mount, I took a section of toilet paper tube and wrapped it around a used 18mm motor, then cut it to size. For centering rings, I used the center of old DVDs cut to size. For the metal retainer, I cut a small piece from a special edition Terminator 2 DVD, which came in an aluminum case. It was already bent up so no loss there.
Now the nose cone. I made a plastic form from a thin piece of plastic rolled up. I took office copy paper, coated with wood glue, and rolled it around the form, let dry, then rolled another layer. After that was dry, I sanded thoroughly until it was smooth.
The coupler was made from remaining toilet paper tube as were the launch lugs, which i wished turned out better.
I still need to make the parachute and cord, perhaps a piece of a garbage bag cut into a hexagon. Then "borrow" some of my wife's sewing thread for the lines.
All in all though I pretty happy with it so far. Almost a meter in height. According to OpenRocket, it should weigh about 140g with engine and get up to ~360 feet with a C6-5.
We'll see once it's complete, painted and launched. Not bad for a $0 budget.
I started with a Christmas paper roll tube which is 1.5" in diameter and 30" in length. I made fins out of the thin cardboard packaging for a cheap android tablet. I cut out 6x fin shapes from a paper template, 3 with the cardboard grain vertical, 3 horizontal. Then I glued pairs vertical & horizontal grained pieces to end up with 3x fins, 4mm in width, with reasonable strength.
For the motor mount, I took a section of toilet paper tube and wrapped it around a used 18mm motor, then cut it to size. For centering rings, I used the center of old DVDs cut to size. For the metal retainer, I cut a small piece from a special edition Terminator 2 DVD, which came in an aluminum case. It was already bent up so no loss there.
Now the nose cone. I made a plastic form from a thin piece of plastic rolled up. I took office copy paper, coated with wood glue, and rolled it around the form, let dry, then rolled another layer. After that was dry, I sanded thoroughly until it was smooth.
The coupler was made from remaining toilet paper tube as were the launch lugs, which i wished turned out better.
I still need to make the parachute and cord, perhaps a piece of a garbage bag cut into a hexagon. Then "borrow" some of my wife's sewing thread for the lines.
All in all though I pretty happy with it so far. Almost a meter in height. According to OpenRocket, it should weigh about 140g with engine and get up to ~360 feet with a C6-5.
We'll see once it's complete, painted and launched. Not bad for a $0 budget.