finished, closed. I got some Nerf Darts a while back used on Amazon. Package was bent out of shape and would have been useless for routine use (likely why they were sold so cheap, in small quantities these are pretty pricey to me retail, but I didn’t need hundreds). I laughed when I saw the package, didn’t matter to me, I use them for nose cone protectors or mods for models that fall nose first (typical rear eject, but some of my early helicopter rockets were designed that way). Anyhoo, at the top you see a rough model of my origami nose pyramids, you can imagine that wouldn’t be very sturdy as the initial impact point.
@BEC has (IMO) correctly criticized the Estes Quark featherweight for having a pointy nose cone, thus while featherweight still might sting if it hit you, potentially severe eye injury if “heads up” called at just the wrong time.
I think my nose pyramids (aka cones) are fairly safe even in event or unintended ballistic recovery as they have no “backing”, they will just crumple if they hit anything substantial , but for both safety and durability(again this is intended to impact nose cone tip first) I cut the tip off and shoved in a cut off Nerf Dart (AND the rest of the pyramid will STILL crumple), so i think I am good on both counts.
the pyramid is EXTERNALLY shouldered, so it wraps AROUND the brakes and acts as a retention device for the boost phase. Inside is a D casing which fits INSIDE the body tube. Only NEEDS to shove out about 1/4 inch to release the brakes.
the dowel is fixed inside the motor tube. I have multiple Kevlar attachments, (recent discussion on Kevlar thread questioned strength. I bought this a long time ago and I don’t know its strength, so I added two pieces for a total of three. One “tautens” first, if it breaks I hope the other two hold). Not a long shock cord, there is a reason. I don’t want the cord to tangle up with fins or brakes. The short cord(s) and the internal dowel should make sure the nose section STAYS forward, effectively pulling the REST of the rocket nose end DOWN. The dowel makes the nose section more of a pendulum than a free hanging weight, or at least that is the intent. It is imperative the rocket falls nose first.
this shows the nose section fully extended, you can see (rather, CAN’T see) the tail end of the dowel because it stays intentionally recessed in the body tube even at full extension.
hard to demonstrate this outside of actual flight. Theory is, at ejection, the nose is shoved mostly out, brakes are release, rocket SHOULD base on nose weight and tail drag alone orient nose down and start to fall. The brakes (the Side-Panels Of the rocket on boost) are freely hinged. They SHOULD spontaneously be force back by spontaneous air flow in the falling rocket. there are no springs or elastic pulls.
the fins are balsa 2 ply in orthogonal layers, one direction for strength of the fins on boost, the other so the leading edges of the fins act as the brake stops. The extra “backing” on the brake blades is to bolster them so impact with the fins doesn’t “break the brake blades” (try saying THAT three times fast!)
Another shot to show the internal nose cone motor casing. I guess you could say the nose has BOTH an INTERNAL SHOULDER and EXTERNAL shoulder.
going to be a good thread
