I needed a way to store my growing LPR fleet in limited space. I don't have shelves or room for boxes, I decided I had a little bit of ceiling space open in the garage. My idea was to roll some cardboard tubes so this is what I came up with . It will store 30 or more LPR (BT-60 and below). It has 30 tubes and will hold 30 good sized rockets, or up to 60 short rockets if you have room to put them in from both sides. As the rockets are placed in this photo I have staggered them so the fins don't interfere. To add more rockets I can put them in from the other side so that just the nose cone projects out between the fins.
I did some measurements to see what it might take and decided that a tube with about 2" inside diameter might work, about 16" long. Then I was thinking about where I would get the cardboard, I wasn't going to drive around town dumpster diving. For the size I wanted I determined that each tube would take a piece of cardboard 8"x16", with the corrugations going the long way so it would roll easier. I looked at moving boxes at Lowes and found that their standard large box for $2.18 would give me 10 pieces so I bought 3 of the boxes and cut them up.
I had an old tube of silicone sealant and found that I could roll the cardboard around something the size of a standard caulk tube, glue the edges and hold it with tape until it dried. First I rolled the cardboard around a smaller wood dowel to get it partially formed to a curved shape. Then I just glued them together setting flat on my workbench. I put a board underneath and connected to the ceiling with some screws and thin wire. The triangular pieces on top are spacers to hold it down from the ceiling a little bit to provide clearance for fins.
In case someone asks- in the last photo the rockets are top row left to right- Nike Smoke, Estes ESAM, Estes HiFlier XL, Estes HiFlier XL kitbashed into an Aerobee-Hi, Ested Mean Machine kitbashed into the last version of the Centuri AeroDart, bottom left to right Estes Guardian, Estes Firebird, under the HiFlier XL there is an Estes Big Dawg, Estes Baby Bertha still in white primer, Honest John kitbashed from Estes Deep Space Transport.
I did some measurements to see what it might take and decided that a tube with about 2" inside diameter might work, about 16" long. Then I was thinking about where I would get the cardboard, I wasn't going to drive around town dumpster diving. For the size I wanted I determined that each tube would take a piece of cardboard 8"x16", with the corrugations going the long way so it would roll easier. I looked at moving boxes at Lowes and found that their standard large box for $2.18 would give me 10 pieces so I bought 3 of the boxes and cut them up.
I had an old tube of silicone sealant and found that I could roll the cardboard around something the size of a standard caulk tube, glue the edges and hold it with tape until it dried. First I rolled the cardboard around a smaller wood dowel to get it partially formed to a curved shape. Then I just glued them together setting flat on my workbench. I put a board underneath and connected to the ceiling with some screws and thin wire. The triangular pieces on top are spacers to hold it down from the ceiling a little bit to provide clearance for fins.
In case someone asks- in the last photo the rockets are top row left to right- Nike Smoke, Estes ESAM, Estes HiFlier XL, Estes HiFlier XL kitbashed into an Aerobee-Hi, Ested Mean Machine kitbashed into the last version of the Centuri AeroDart, bottom left to right Estes Guardian, Estes Firebird, under the HiFlier XL there is an Estes Big Dawg, Estes Baby Bertha still in white primer, Honest John kitbashed from Estes Deep Space Transport.
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