balsa scrap roc stand challenge

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Pappy

old man, lovin' life
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ever look at your balsa scrap pile ( i know you guys keep that stuff...) and your wood glue and think, "y'know, i could build a pirate ship with that..." ? well... me too.

i like to build stands for the kits that don't stand upright on their own (protruding engine clip, inverted fins, et al)and i thought it would be fun to use only the scrap from the balsa/basswood sheet that came with the kit. the example shown is made from/for the star trooper. no design plan, just shot from the hip, so to speak. added stuff as i went to improve stability. i am eager to see what cool stuff you engineering nerds come up with. :)

rocstand3.jpgrocstand2.jpgrocstand1.jpg

have at it, my fellows...
 
built this one while watching hurricane ian roll on through. 'cane took a hard right before it hit us, so i'm sittin' here with power, wifi, a bit of hard wind, lots of thanks to god, and hoping people elsewhere are okay.

this stand is built from the 1/64" basswood sheet scrap from a semroc mmx orb trans. so thin it warps with a dab of glue. had to use tiny shims to compensate for the base warping

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I just glue spent motors to squares of stiff cardboard. Maybe I'll start using bits of kit scrap instead of the cardboard, but I'm not giving up the motors; they work too well.

i use the yellow 18mm spacers in that manner, too, and have several i use as paint stands. i don't have too many spent motor casings, but they're best for a perfect fit. using them with the other scraps is a great idea. the 'challenge' here, in my mind, is really just to make something stable out of scrap and refuse; no rules, just guidelines. it is potent art to render function from waste.
 
Here is one I made many years ago, maybe over 50 years ago. I stumbled across this photo while looking through the gallery subforum. I no longer own this rocket, it was built as a display model using BT30 and the vinyl plastic nose cone that Estes used to sell very long ago. I still have a few other similar stands but smaller. A small square of wood with a used motor glued to it is easy to make and very handy for rockets that won't stand on their own.

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Since waste is readily available, it fits my father's definition of engineering: the art of making things you want out of stuff you can get.
How is that "Engineering"? Designing, sure, but Engineering?

Engineering is the use of scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings
 
I'd be afraid they would collapse in the middle of the night as thin as those are.

no doubt. stability is the main concern and most important design aspect. this wood sucks up glue, so the construction probably has more mass in glue than wood. it might tip with some heavy vibration (tested and passed) but it's not breaking unless something heavy falls on it.
 
If you apply those principals based on the properties of the available materials, to achieve the design requirements and goals, that's engineering.

I want a small, solid device that can perform signal rectification like a diode tube. Stuff I can get includes quartz sand, various metal ores and other chemicals. So I find a way, using known scientific principals, to reduce the silicon dioxide to elemental silicon and dope a piece with aluminum on one side and phosphorous on the other, diffusing through the whole until a boundary layer forms. Then I find an alloy that can act as solder to attach wires to the silicon (even though soldering is usually done with metals and silicon is not one). I've now made a thing I want - a solid state diode - out of stuff I can get, like sand.*

Don't say I'm twisting his words or rationalizing; he was an EE like his son, and that sort of thing is exactly what he meant.

Or in other words:
Engineering is the use of scientific principles to design and build...
things. And you can only bud them out of available materials.

* Yes, I'm aware that the first solid state diodes were not based on silicon, or even on P-N junctions.
 
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