Clustering composites question

[jqavins]

What adhesive?

NC lacquer? (Other answers have already been provided by more knowledgeable people. I'm just throwing it out there.)

 

[beeblebrox]

The small slot and nozzle on 24 mm motors does not leave much room for putting in extras, although it might be possible. I will probably re-visit the 24 mm composite clusters again sometime.

Note there are two sizes of Pyrodex pellets. 30 and 60 grain equivalents. Using too large a pellet can cause detonation of the motor if the pressure gets too high. This actually happened with some CTI reloads and the fix was to remove the pellet, cut it in half and reinstall it. For your "E" motors, carefully cut the smaller size pellet in half. Easiest way is with a fine tooth razor saw, score a groove all the way around it, keep going till most of the way thru, you should then be able to carefully break it in half. I bond the pellets in the top grain with a small amount of nitro lacquer made by dissolving smokeless powder in MEK, or acetone. You would need to drill a 0.400" hole 3/8" deep in the top of the grain if there is not enough room below the delay element. Use lowest RPM <500 on drill press.

 

[OzHybrid]

Easy way to light a reloadable G64.(white lightning) Get a C black powder motor, remove cardboard casing. You now have a slug of compressed BP(past the delay section which is a slightly different colour). Cut a small slice off end. Stuff into slot in propellant top.. Use any igniter you want( preferably a first fire) The BP will light immediately and ignite the rest almost instantaneously. Haven't had a chuf,chuf on the pad since I moved to this method. You could also use a slice of blue thunder, but that would cost you a composite reload.
Norm

Here’s a 10 year old G64 yesterday with C6 compressed black powder slice as a helper. No chuff there…… Nike Smoke in case you missed it………
View attachment IMG_1864.MOV



you can see the lighter grey delay section on left. Don’t use that as a helper. It won’t be helpful.

You can just see it in there if you squint….

 

[beeblebrox]

Here’s a 10 year old G64 yesterday with C6 compressed black powder slice as a helper. No chuff there…… Nike Smoke in case you missed it………
View attachment 502174


View attachment 502176
you can see the lighter grey delay section on left. Don’t use that as a helper. It won’t be helpful.
View attachment 502177View attachment 502179
You can just see it in there if you squint….

Only problem with that is that you are destroying a BP motor... It would be better to use pyrodex pellets. You can cut them in half carefully with a razor saw, cut the halves lengthwise to get smaller pieces, you would get four chunks for augmenting ignition from one pellet....

 

[OzHybrid]

Only problem with that is that you are destroying a BP motor... It would be better to use pyrodex pellets. You can cut them in half carefully with a razor saw, cut the halves lengthwise to get smaller pieces, you would get four chunks for augmenting ignition from one pellet....

I'm in Australia......No accessible pyrodex here......There's penty of countries you cannot just go to the store and get pyrodex. This method works well and is accessible to anyone.
But whatever works for you. If you have a better method please post footage of it in action. I'm not saying this is the method you have to use. Just this is the method I use and it works. And here's video of it working.

 

[beeblebrox]

I'm in Australia......No accessible pyrodex here......There's penty of countries you cannot just go to the store and get pyrodex. This method works well and is accessible to anyone.
But whatever works for you. If you have a better method please post footage of it in action. I'm not saying this is the method you have to use. Just this is the method I use and it works. And here's video of it working.

Did not notice you were in Australia, and did not know you could not get pyrodex.... Wish I could visit there!!!

 

[UhClem]

If you have a pile of old Copperheads, while the copper part is sometimes a problem, it does have a decent pyrogen. So just clip off most of the copper and dangle a few at the front of the motor. If the igniter gets one going, the motor should follow.

A variation on the Thermalite trick I saw a couple of decades ago. Used on I161s in a LOC King Viper III.

 

[OzHybrid]

If you have a pile of old Copperheads, while the copper part is sometimes a problem, it does have a decent pyrogen. So just clip off most of the copper and dangle a few at the front of the motor. If the igniter gets one going, the motor should follow.

A variation on the Thermalite trick I saw a couple of decades ago. Used on I161s in a LOC King Viper III.

That works great 1 time in an emergency. Next time there's none left. How big is your pile of copperheads? Ok it's a massive pile.. I'm wrong....

 

[jqavins]

Since (everyone is saying; I wouldn't know for myself) that Blue Thunder is easy to light, how about getting the smallest (read: cheapest) Blue Thunder reload there is and using that as a donor of pyrogen booster?

 

[Ez2cDave]

Since (everyone is saying; I wouldn't know for myself) that Blue Thunder is easy to light, how about getting the smallest (read: cheapest) Blue Thunder reload there is and using that as a donor of pyrogen booster?

Agreed . . . Look at the Certified Motor List . . . Compare the Propellant Wt. per motor . . . Calculate the cost per gram . . . Buy the best "bang for the buck" ( avoid hazmat motors ) and you are "good to go" !

If you are not HPR certified, stick to "model rocket" motors.

Dave F.

 

[OzHybrid]

$20 cost for composite reload or C motor$5 cost. I'm sure it's cheaper in US. And blue thunder is harder to light than a black powder chunk.
The original question was about 24mm and 29 mm motors. If it was something bigger I'd use a whole different method.

 

[heada]

Since (everyone is saying; I wouldn't know for myself) that Blue Thunder is easy to light, how about getting the smallest (read: cheapest) Blue Thunder reload there is and using that as a donor of pyrogen booster?

https://csrocketry.com/aerotech-e23-5t-blue-thunder-rocket-motor.html
Single blue reload for $13 plus shipping.. That is a c-slot I believe so you should be able to get long skinny slivers that could be used in the core/slot of similar sized motors.

Used to be able to get pydrodex pellets, 100 45cal pellets for $20 at my local sporting goods store. Not available in the last 2 years due to...well....everything ammo being harder to find then hen's teeth.

 

[OzHybrid]

https://csrocketry.com/aerotech-e23-5t-blue-thunder-rocket-motor.html
Single blue reload for $13 plus shipping.. That is a c-slot I believe so you should be able to get long skinny slivers that could be used in the core/slot of similar sized motors.

Used to be able to get pydrodex pellets, 100 45cal pellets for $20 at my local sporting goods store. Not available in the last 2 years due to...well....everything ammo being harder to find then hen's teeth.

reduced to $13
$16.99$12.74 for 1

or https://csrocketry.com/rocket-motors/rocket-motors/estes/18mm/c5-3-3ea.html

for pack of 3 and you can use the other 2. $4 for 1. There's no advantage I'm aware of to use blue thunder over a C motor slice, other than you can cut it with a knife, but it's 3 times the price. Been a long time since I lit a cigar with a $10 note. The plastic just tastes awful these days...

 

[jqavins]

I thought it might burn hotter and therefore be even more certain than BP for the purpose. And, that $12.74 will get you a lot of slivers; 17 grams of propellant and I'll bet those slivers are a half a gram or less.

$12.74 ÷ 17 g * 0.5 g/launch = 37.5 ¢/launch.​

One might even grind it up and stick some to an igniter with an appropriate adhesive (MC lacquer comes to mind). But then, one can enhance igniters that way with lots of different pyrogens.

But it was just a thought.

 

[OzHybrid]

I thought it might burn hotter and therefore be even more certain than BP for the purpose. And, that $12.74 will get you a lot of slivers; 17 grams of propellant and I'll bet those slivers are a half a gram or less.

$12.74 ÷ 17 g * 0.5 g/launch = 37.5 ¢/launch.​

One might even grind it up and stick some to an igniter with an appropriate adhesive (MC lacquer comes to mind). But then, one can enhance igniters that way with lots of different pyrogens.

But it was just a thought.

I've got copper oxide, magnesium,aluminium,KNO3 etc all in stock, I've even got a blue thunder reload somewhere. But for the smaller reloads 24/29, this really works well and is simple. No magic formulas... And everyone has an estes motor in their box somewhere...

 

[John Taylor]

You must be a mind reader! I would like to do the same thing with White Lightning and also have the Clusterfire pyrogen. I don’t particularly care for Blue Thunder’s characteristics other than it is easier to ignite.

Exactly, I only like the Blue Thunder is it lights easily.
I'm wanting to lite a cluster of Dark Matter Sparkies.

 

[NOLA_BAR]

Exactly, I only like the Blue Thunder is it lights easily.
I'm wanting to lite a cluster of Dark Matter Sparkies.

So far I have not had good results clustering White Lightning reloads. I have had good results with the Q-Jets “fast white-lightning”, which appears to be much easier to ignite.

 

[Dugway]

We didn't have any trouble getting three x K535W-14A going. We used the cluster box and stock igniters.