3D Printed & Fiberglass Rocket - FESTUS

[JBoyson]

So my big project this last year was to build a L2 Scale (3in Diam, 54mm Motor, Dual Deploy) Rocket that was predominately 3D Printed but interfaced with a COTS Fiberglass Nose Cone and E-Bay. And thus FESTUS was born.
The entire Core is 3D printed and then 2 layers of fiberglass are laid up over that to provide rigidity to the places where 1 print meets another. I also have some Carbon rods inside the prints to add extra rigidity. This whole rocket was printed in 8in tall segments on my Prusa Mk3S+.
#PrintFlyRepeat

 

[jqavins]

 

[alexzogh]

Sorry I missed this originally.

Maybe too late, but one thing you can try is printing with a soluble filament like HIPS. Glass the HIPS 3d printed part, then dissolve the filament leaving only the fiberglass part. I did this almost exclusively when making filament wound tubes and nosecones and it worked very well.

 

[JohnCoker]

It's great that you're trying new stuff; nice work!

How did reinforcing the aft end work out? I was skeptical about "slitting and sliding it over" since fiberglass is hard to work with and changes dimension as you wet it and smooth it out.

Also, since you mentioned cost, did you record what you spent on filament?

 

[JBoyson]

So I'll answer both in one post.
the point of the fiber glass was to reenforce a light weight 3d print so combined they made a lighter but same strenth airframe as Fiberglass.

The fin can section was rock solid, but the time I got all the fiberglass layups doen and finished teh tip to tip layups along with the leading edge layup it was more solid than my normal rocket builds.
It wasn't the easiest to get done, but the results were worth the struggle of getting teh fiberglass perfectly attached.

 

[JBoyson]

I'd also estimate I had about 5 rolls of PETG into the project and at around ~$20/roll its basically $100 in filament