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When fiberglassing rockets, I prefer to use Soller Composites fiberglass sleeve. The glass used here is advertised at 10.3 oz/yd2 before epoxy. I also got some heat shrink tubing to give the airframe a smooth and consistent finish (mostly successful). I've found it also helps squeeze out some...

My kit came with open (non forged/welded) eye bolts. Are these sufficient for a rocket of this size?

A while back I built and flew a L3 rocket at Airfest, which had a beautiful launch and landing on an AT M1350. Unfortunately, Kansas happened and after landing, the wind picked up in the chute and proceeded to slam the nose cone into the ground several times, shearing it apart. (It was 3D...

This one flew on seven BE-4's and two BE-3U's an M1350. The sim had it doing ~5900 ft and the data shows it was closer to 5500 ft. The sim also showed a max speed of ~820 ft/s whereas Raven thinks that number was closer to 640 ft/s. The sim does account for individual component weights, which...

Here's the only other photo I can find. I think I'm going to wait until the real deal flies before I completely rebuild since the design seems to change often enough. I'll also have to re-decal, which is a bummer.

I actually did fly this at AirFest in 2018 and completely forgot to put in the final updates. It was a great flight, but after landing, the wind kept catching the main, which dragged the rocket across the field and also slammed the nose cone into the ground multiple times. The end result was...

I've been flying with printed ABS conformal rail guides for a few years now and haven't noticed the slightest indication of any damage. I haven't done above Mach, but I have gotten close.

The main airframe structure is built from 6-inch PML phenolic tubing. Three segments of this tubing make up the rocket body--a 29 inch segment which serves as the booster airframe and drogue parachute bay, a 24 inch segment which serves as a main parachute bay, and an 11 inch segment which...

To put it simply, there are a lot of aerodynamic surfaces on my New Glenn model. The most important are the main fins, which are located at the aft end of the rocket. These fins are 1/4" thick clear acrylic fins (currently still in their protective blue plastic cling wrap). They are of a...

Obviously, it's been a while since last posting, and a few things have changed (but not the incredibly small amount of time I have to work on stuff like this). I modded the design a bit to match the 7 meter fairing only configuration. This did not change the height of the rocket, but it did...

I believe the Gemini capsule is technically of a bi-conic design whereas a rocket engine sports a bell profile. In either case, aerodynamics/fluid dynamics drives the optimal profile.

I got to go as a judge and a sponsor/recruiter and was really impressed with the work so many of these students did. There was some pretty fantastic stuff at the competition!

As it may have been deduced thus far, this was not finished in time for NSL. I'm having a bit more trouble than anticipated making mandrels for the payload fairing and aft section. I'm also considering descoping the two strakes since I got them cut to the wrong dimensions and I also failed to...

As previously mentioned, the payload bay and aft section airframes are not of a standard size, so I will have to make those tube sections myself. In order to make the airframe tubes, I will also have to make the mandrels, which are to be the subject of this post. I previously printed a few...

I made the decision to 3D print the transition sections using white ABS. My printer, a FlashForge Creator Pro, is a pretty nice unit with a fairly large build area--approximately 8.9 inches by 5.7 inches on the base, and 5.9 inches vertically--but this is also a really big rocket. Neither of...

I'm working on a number of exciting new rockets to bring to NSL this year, but the one I'm most excited about is the scale model of Blue Origin's yet-to-be-built New Glenn rocket, since this would be my Level 3 cert. The New Glenn rocket is going to be pretty big [citation needed], so I scaled...

No pics yet since a lot of these are under construction or repair... -6" scale of Blue Origin's New Glenn -6" scale of Blue Origin's New Shepard -4" scale of Atlas V (401) -54mm scale of the SR-71 -a stupidly long 29mm rocket -might try to hack together something with lights for a night launch...

Craig, there's also an online service called 3D Hubs where people with printers host "shops" so you can select based on their prices and services offered. It's also nice since you may find a local printer where you can pick up a part to save on shipping.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dugpPEp2y78 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVKBj4LmOm4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BN8QoDJxkE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXOyrIo20bM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcejdM9PLCw