What did you do rocket wise today?

I finished up gluing the entire motor mount / main fin assembly into my 5.5" Patriot only to realize that two of the fins were off by 10deg and were already cemented in with JB Weld! Grrr

wyattjohnson35 said:

I finished up gluing the entire motor mount / main fin assembly into my 5.5" Patriot only to realize that two of the fins were off by 10deg and were already cemented in with JB Weld! Grrr

Click to expand...

That sounds like my first Estes Patriot (SAM). It spent a year with fins like an X wing because one was off and I wanted it symmetric.

Didn't fix it till a fin popped later

Made sure my Wildman membership was renewed and up to date.

Sheeted and attached the fins on my Big Bertha. Will work the fillets today and maybe get a coat of primer on her before sundown.

Received a Thanksgiving Eve present to myself in the mail today:

Resistor 24 and TLP Hellfire from Heavenly Hobbies. Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

Wayco said:

Just got back from another excellent launch at TRA/PHX. Started cleaning up rockets and was having a hard time getting a CTI 54 6 grain out of my fireflyer. Ended up pushing it out forward through the fincan, only to find this:

Oh well, at least it's one case I won't have to clean...

It was a great flight on a K750 Red Lightning, Mach 1.5 and 15,213 ft. Testing the latest version of the Featherweight GPS.
These new 2.6" kits with 54mm MMT's really perform well:

Click to expand...

You need orange nosecone and fins on that bird Wayco !

I call 2.6 inch 54mm bird AMD ..Almost Minimum Diameter.. You can still use mmt bridal, ttw and std retainer .. Rail buttons optional. Not min but should out perform equivalant 3 inch

Kenny

Cut fins for a 3" Big Bertha, a BT80H Optima clone, a 3" Arapahoe-E, and a Pro Series Patriot clone, I also turned a dummy 75/7680 on my wood lathe for test fitting the Nuclear Sledgehammer (I now know and have confirmed a CTI 75mm 6grain or a AT 75/7680 will fit), removed the U-bolt from the Nuclear Sledgehammers Av-Bay drogue side so motor would fit , now it needs 2 eyebolts to replace it or moving the Ubolt somewhere else on the bulkhead (not likely due to the odd AvBay), the motor will even clear the CDD3 firing mechanism. Worked on one of my wife's Christmas presents somewhere in the middle of all that. Will be starting the builds on all the rockets I cut fins for this weekend.

KenRico said:

You need orange nosecone and fins on that bird Wayco !

I call 2.6 inch 54mm bird AMD ..Almost Minimum Diameter.. You can still use mmt bridal, ttw and std retainer .. Rail buttons optional. Not min but should out perform equivalant 3 inch

Kenny

Click to expand...

I just can't add orange to that color of green. The 2.6 diameter is great, I struggled to resist the Madcow sale last Friday, but our build pile is out of control. I'm glad Wildman didn't have any kit's that pushed my button.

Nytrunner said:

Pulled the tape, applied a sharpie, and dry fit. Ready to glue together the ASM (Atmospheric Space Modulator!) and then do decals.

View attachment 367172

Click to expand...

Nice looking bird!

Cleaned the field dirt and scorch marks off the few rockets I got to fly this season, before tucking them in for the rest of the winter.

Inventoried the composite motors. I certainly have enough High Power reloads to get me through the next season (my Black Sat. shopping list is just one I motor and one K motor).

I have way too many mid power S/U motors, mostly accumulated when I thought I wasn't going to bother with HPR (and certainly wasn't going to invest in a reloadable casing) <smile>.


About half of these -- mostly Gs -- have been traded to other fliers, and will be going out of the house this weekend.

Here's hoping for a healthier and less fraught 2019, so that I can put the rest of them in the air.

There are the black powder motors to sort and count too. That's what I will have done, rocket-wise, tomorrow.

jlabrasca said:

Cleaned the field dirt and scorch marks off the few rockets I got to fly this season, before tucking them in for the rest of the winter.

Inventoried the composite motors. I certainly have enough High Power reloads to get me through the next season (my Black Sat. shopping list is just one I motor and one K motor).

I have way too many mid power S/U motors, mostly accumulated when I thought I wasn't going to bother with HPR (and certainly wasn't going to invest in a reloadable casing) <smile>.
View attachment 367386

About half of these -- mostly Gs -- have been traded to other fliers, and will be going out of the house this weekend.

Here's hoping for a healthier and less fraught 2019, so that I can put the rest of them in the air.

There are the black powder motors to sort and count too. That's what I will have done, rocket-wise, tomorrow.

Click to expand...

Ever managed to get those e20-7W’s lit?

Only way we’ve been able to is with a pinch of 4f before the igniter...

I finally decided to purchase Estes Black Friday Redstone offer. I have always wanted a Little Joe kit, and can always use another Redstone in the build pile

snrkl said:

Ever managed to get those e20-7W’s lit?

Only way we’ve been able to is with a pinch of 4f before the igniter...

Click to expand...

I've got one blister pack with a motor missing...IIRC I used it in the BT80 Scrambler upscale (built in case TARC ever has an emu egg lofting competition). Don't recall now if it went off w/o issue.

Got up early to check sale prices, looked at the inventory list, and decided that I have enough propellant. Sloping off back to bed now.

Ordered a bunch of specials!

Became disappointed when LOC Precision had no specials.

Became disappointed when LOC Precision had no specials.

Finished the decals on the ASM (Atmospheric Space Modulator)

Worked on these today...




all are 3" versions , a Arapahoe-E upscale, PS Patriot clone (29mm instead of 4x24mm, but I did think carefully about building it as a flex mount with 4x24, 3x29, and a single 29mm inserts) and a 3" upscale of the Big Bertha. The BB and Arapahoe-E both use the MDRM fin construction of 1/8" Baltic Birch Ply cores with skins of 1/16" balsa and the balsa skinned with self adhesive label paper. All three rockets are designed to use a common Av-Bay or they can be flown as motor deploy only (I didn't feel like building 3 identical AvBays so instead I made a airframe drilling jig for removable plastic rivets that way the DD bay can be moved from one to the next. The yellow nose cone on the Arapahoe-E is a recycle picked up when Tripoli Gerlach had there "yard sale" a while back. The Araphoe uses a Big Daddy nose cone, and the tail cone is a BMS PNC-300K cut to 7.5" long and the aft diameter sized for a piece of 38mm MMT (so it could have been built with 38mm motor if desired). Starting my BT80H clone of the Estes Optima with a 29mm MMT in a few minutes.

Researched types of airframe tubing for my 3" dual-deploy scratch build. Nothing special -- just a generic 3 fin design for 38mm G-J (so I don't have to buy a new set of motor hardware). Would like to make it light enough to fly under a Level 1 waiver with smaller motors.
Between Quantum and Blue tube, with MAC Performance Canvas Phenolic as a dark horse contender.
Leaning towards Quantum unless I can get custom slots on Canvas Phenolic.
Don't want to start a religious argument, but any thoughts welcome.

Bill Hanson said:

Researched types of airframe tubing for my 3" dual-deploy scratch build. Nothing special -- just a generic 3 fin design for 38mm G-J (so I don't have to buy a new set of motor hardware). Would like to make it light enough to fly under a Level 1 waiver with smaller motors.
Between Quantum and Blue tube, with MAC Performance Canvas Phenolic as a dark horse contender.
Leaning towards Quantum unless I can get custom slots on Canvas Phenolic.
Don't want to start a religious argument, but any thoughts welcome.

Click to expand...

If it’s a cold climate, quantum changes size noticeable apparently in cold weather and problems with pistons and coupler fit becomes a challenge.

If it’s a hot humid climate, I’ve been steeded away from bluetube as humidity kills it and caused warping.

Given I’m in a hot humid climate, I’ve been quite happy with quantum with phenolic couplers to date. My LRV can also laser slot quantum, which is handy.

I haven’t tried canvas phenolic.

Bill Hanson said:

...Leaning towards Quantum unless I can get custom slots on Canvas Phenolic.
Don't want to start a religious argument, but any thoughts welcome.

Click to expand...

For Canvas Phenolic contact Mike at Mac Performance. He can work up a full custom slotted kit for you if you wanted.

As an example, check out mpitfield's evolution of the BlackFly (Link)

Finished my rocketry Black Friday shopping this morning. Pretty excited about the upcoming year.

Ordered a bunch of recovery and motor retention bits and pieces to help finish off a couple builds.

snrkl said:

If it’s a cold climate, quantum changes size noticeable apparently in cold weather and problems with pistons and coupler fit becomes a challenge.

If it’s a hot humid climate, I’ve been steeded away from bluetube as humidity kills it and caused warping.

Given I’m in a hot humid climate, I’ve been quite happy with quantum with phenolic couplers to date. My LRV can also laser slot quantum, which is handy.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info -- here we are hot and dry, so I don't have to worry about either one.

Tobor said:

For Canvas Phenolic contact Mike at Mac Performance. He can work up a full custom slotted kit for you if you wanted.

As an example, check out mpitfield's evolution of the BlackFly (Link)

Click to expand...

Thanks for the link. I had been looking at a 3" MPR38 kit there, but would like to extend the body tube a bit to give more space for parachute/shock cord. Have to give Mike @ MAC Performance kudos for helping me out with the .ork file so I could look it over in OpenRocket.

I wasn't sure how easy he was about "special" mods, but given that and everything I've heard of MAC kit quality, that's now a leading contender.

Finally got around to spraying the primer coat on my STM-012, Mini Comanche 3 and Mean Machine.

I didn't do any work on my LOC 3" Black Brant X, but I did order the Mega-Roc, Banshee, and Fire and Forget from U.S. Rockets, as well as some interchangeable motor mounts.

Picked up a LOC 3.9 V2 from BuyRocketMotors cyber Monday Sale.

Mike

I launched my website and put in more work towards preparing for my Level 1 Cert today.

Ordered some stuff from GLR & eRockets for future kit builds.