What did you do rocket wise today?

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Drilled a hole in the base of a balsa nose cone. Tried for the first time the technique of putting the drill bit in a vise, and then just turning the nose cone onto the drill bit by hand. Wow that worked great. I won't worry about drilling holes in balsa anymore.
IrisT-624-1.jpg
 
Did a little work on a Sky Dart II/SP-Kogata Bītoru (turning the re-rleased Sky Dart II into something else).

Decided to use nylon hinges in place of tape.
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Painted my Aerobee 150 build today, and received a couple of goodies from Tim at Apogee in the mail as well for my next build project!

IMG_7518.jpg IMG_7519.jpg
 
Finally got the fins on my B Cluster Altitude models for NARAM and got a good start on a Semroc Retro Repro Rock-A-Chute Mark II that will be painted to match the NARAM-60 logo.
 
Thanks snrkl. Having a vinyl cutter is awesome for paint jobs. I just have a Silhouette Cameo 3. Cheap with good software - works like a champ. EnduraMatte seems to work great for cutting paint masks.

neil_w said:
A vinyl cutter, a laser cutter, and a 3D printer and you never need to leave the house! :cool:
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You still need to leave the house to launch rockets!
 
neil_w said:
A vinyl cutter, a laser cutter, and a 3D printer and you never need to leave the house! :cool:
Click to expand...

Or you could get save the bench space and get a CNC milling machine with a drag knife. As GrouchoDuke observed you will need to leave the house to fly the rockets, but you will spend a LOT of your time in the house watching and reading tutorials on things like "building a drag knife for your CNC router" <smile>
 
Made 350 motor starters for composite's. Should last a few days.

Working on custom low current version [BKNO3]for staging/clusters. Any altimeter will be able to fire them!

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GrouchoDuke said:
I did a little filing of the fin slots followed by a dry fit of all the parts for my new Madcow Mouse 38. Looks like it'll be a fun mid-power rocket to add to the collection!

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Hi GrouchoDuke... that pic of the dry fit looks great!! I am thinking of picking up a Mouse 38, did you have any fin spacing or airframe issues? Or nosecone size diff to body as some have suggested? I don't want to waste my money if they are faulty parts.
 
shooze said:
Hi GrouchoDuke... that pic of the dry fit looks great!! I am thinking of picking up a Mouse 38, did you have any fin spacing or airframe issues? Or nosecone size diff to body as some have suggested? I don't want to waste my money if they are faulty parts.
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The original body tube I got was the wrong diameter compared to the nose cone, but they shipped out a free replacement right away.

Sadly, I haven't flown my Mouse yet. I need to decide on the amount of nose weight to add first. It looks like I need to add about 3 to 4 oz to fly full sized G motors, but I might just limit it to F motors since I don't plan on putting electronics in it. It'd be really fun to fly on an F120.
IMG_8015.jpg
 
GrouchoDuke said:
The original body tube I got was the wrong diameter compared to the nose cone, but they shipped out a free replacement right away.

Sadly, I haven't flown my Mouse yet. I need to decide on the amount of nose weight to add first. It looks like I need to add about 3 to 4 oz to fly full sized G motors, but I might just limit it to F motors since I don't plan on putting electronics in it. It'd be really fun to fly on an F120.
View attachment 356649
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REALLY nice paint job, so well done. I was thinking about something cool like that. Very impressive work.

I am ordering one tonight, no motors yet, so, nosecone weight will wait. What motor retainer did you choose in your build? AND, I am slightly confused about the use of the screw bolt they say you need, does that attached to the motor mount?.
Sorry, Questions, questions... ;-) I am ordering a 15" nylon chute too, as the retailer stated that it is a rugged rocket. Is that what you used?
Lastly, are the plans online anywhere, or can you send a PDF file of those before I bite the bullet here? Thanks in advance!
 
shooze said:
REALLY nice paint job, so well done. I was thinking about something cool like that. Very impressive work.

I am ordering one tonight, no motors yet, so, nosecone weight will wait. What motor retainer did you choose in your build? AND, I am slightly confused about the use of the screw bolt they say you need, does that attached to the motor mount?.
Sorry, Questions, questions... ;-) I am ordering a 15" nylon chute too, as the retailer stated that it is a rugged rocket. Is that what you used?
Lastly, are the plans online anywhere, or can you send a PDF file of those before I bite the bullet here? Thanks in advance!
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Thanks Snooze. The paint job is pretty close to what I did on my Broken Arrow...I guess I should branch out a bit in my swoopy flame-ish designs. :) (I like what I like though...)

I don't have any instructions. Like many of Madcow's kits (and others too), it came as just a bag of parts. Good thing is that it's really similar to all their other 38mm rockets. You could use their 38m DX3 instructions to get you pretty close: https://www.madcowrocketry.com/1-6-fiberglass-mini-dx3-dual-deploy/ (Although the Mouse is simpler than the DX3.)

I have an 18" thin-mil chute from Top Flight in it. I used an Aero Pack motor retainer: https://www.madcowrocketry.com/aero-pack-29mm-retainer-mini-series-fiberglass-motor-tubes-ra29l3/ The motor retainer is pretty light, but it's weight in exactly the wrong spot for an already tail heavy rocket. I use those retainers on all my non-min-diameter rockets. As long as you put them on square, they work perfectly (just round the outer edge of your motor mount tube to make sure the retainer doesn't get hung up on it when you glue it on).

I didn't use a screw bolt, so, uhhhh, I don't know. I attached the recovery harness to the motor mount pretty similarly to what the DX3 instructions say to do. For the recovery harness, I used either 1000# or 1500# braided Kevlar from EmmaKites. In the nose cone, I epoxied in a 2ft loop of Kevlar using a 3d printed plug that fits in the forward part of the nose cone. I connected the different recovery harness pieces together with a few bowline knots and alpine butterfly loops. Of course, there are lots of other ways to do all of this.

Have fun!

blackjack2564 said:
Made 350 motor starters for composite's. Should last a few days.
Click to expand...
These look like what I need to make for the 24mm motors I'm playing with lately. Are those from a kit or home brew?
 
Last edited:
I do make small ones for 24mm. These use CAT5e wire, which is too large to fit through many 24mm motor nozzles. I use 26ga wire for those, they fit in loads F-24 & F-39 for me. I have used them in smaller sizes also.

No kit for these, custom soldered bridge wire, and epoxy cast pyro. Basic pyro is 325 mesh Mag & Israeli Haifa flour lab grade KN. Both are getting very difficult to source.
 
Placed a “backup” order for a couple of motors in case my Balsa Machining preorder of motors doesn’t get in before the next launch I attend. The the fiberglass sleeve for my LOC Sandhawk arrived yesterday. Need to clean my garage out so I can get started on it!
 
Yesterday I made it out to Garlo a bit after high noon.

Met a bunch of very friendly and helpful CIA folk. Momba had it's maiden flight on an F50-6T (purchased onsite, thx Chris) and got lost in a tree for a spell. A CIA member found it later hanging in a tree (many many thx for that) while looking for one of his lost birds. Also flew my Super Neon XL (x2) and my Big Daddy.
 

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