Been a long time lurker and promised myself that I would set up an account tonight. My hopes are to get an NAR membership sometime this year and go for my L1, but I've been fiddling with smaller rockets that I can simply go outside and launch. Don't worry, my "back yard" is a quarter section of property, so there's plenty of space, though many trees as well.
Anyway, there's a lot about me, but I want to focus on my current thing, LPR.
I've made several rockets over the years out of paper and small engines. I even built an L1-capable rocket a couple years ago from nothing but kraft paper, plywood, and lots of "special" glue to strengthen everything, but it eventually got destroyed before so much as a test launch.
Most recently, I made a little rocket, the Angry Pickle, out of a paper bag and some manilla paper. Flew great, but let's just say I would have been better off to roll a few more layers on the tube. It crinkled, so it sits on my shelf after its maiden flight the other day. At least I used up that last 1/2A motor that was laying around.
Now I'm looking at getting a kit, but none of the LPR kits excite me too much except for a little egg launcher from Apogee. It's called the Courier, I think. Adorable little rocket. But after pricing out some components, I'm leaning toward another scratch build. My cart is around $40 and includes a couple pre-slotted 33mm tubes, four nose cones, an engine mount for same, a parachute, some B motors (I think B6-4), 1/8" balsa sheet, and 1/4" launch lugs (for my home-made launch-pad). So that'll be a 40 dollar rocket including motors, and enough gear to make another BT-55 rocket on the cheap, just add another parachute and motor mount when I'm ready, essentially.
As much as I want my L1 cert (actually I want the L2), money is tight these days and I need to budget things out. I figure I can build another L1 piece by piece as money and time permit rather than rushing it, and in the meantime enjoy an occasional launch at home. I wonder how many HPR guys launch lots of tiny rockets as well. The trouble is that there aren't as many component options for small rockets without buying bundles of parts. For HPR stuff I can go to LOC or other places and get one tube, one this, one that, etc. Nose cones are limited on little rockets too, it seems. I made the Angry Pickle nose out of blue foam using my drill as a lathe, and then coated it with epoxy to toughen it up, but that's hardly an ideal solution.
Anyway, that's my LPR plans. The first one that I designed for this order is a mini version of my old L1 build in style. I might try to make a little Nike Smoke rocket with one of the conical nose cones in the pack, though the cone is on the short side I think. Designing my own kit just seems better suited for me than getting a pre-packaged "slap this together tonight and fly tomorrow" kit from a distributor.
Anyway, no real questions, just hoping something here stirs up a conversation. I'm new so I mainly want to meet some people here and talk about rocket things. My dream is to build and launch a sounding rocket at Black Rock someday, and I also just started a programming project to make my own flight simulator for hobby rocketry.
Considering the time and effort needed for a good paint job, or even a lousy one, making the rocket prove itself paintworthy seems a good idea.
