Finished my new pad; speaker-style but with some mods

[Curtis Enlow]

Once again, a collaborative effort by those who did the hard work before us, some fresh advice and a twist here and there, and POOF! A newish stand!*


* No, I won't launch the extended DD LOC IV with this, well, not without an extension, anyway. It just looks cool on it right now

It's your basic speaker-stand & rail style, except I opted to keep the extension tube of the speaker stand. After using only the outer tube and mounting the rail it didn't feel solid enough to me and still had some 'whip' to it. So I reinstalled the extension tube, drilled another hole and used additional plastic washers along with the standoff to make up for the difference in diameters of the inner & outer tubes and it is much, much stiffer.



I also fixed the mounting bolts in place with a nut against the rail for ease of assembly in the field; they'll always go in the right hole without having the slide the bolts around to fit.

I also found a small drill chuck, mounted it to an L-bracket and fitted the bracket so I could slide it down the rail in order to launch 1/8" and 3/16" rod launched rockets. I actually have rail buttons on the Super Big Bertha shown, but used the lugs just to demo the launch adapter. I need to put a blast shield on the rod pad, probably tomorrow.

I need a folding leg to support the stand sideways to slide on rockets. Have some ideas, just need to find the hardware.

 

[Art Upton]

If you had a G80 in the center tube it probably would work fine , any way get a longer 8010 at a local industrial user is where we got them here. Some times they only had them in 20 foot sections and we had to cut them down to 10 feet in the parking lot to put flags on them and take home

 

[Curtis Enlow]

If you had a G80 in the center tube it probably would work fine , any way get a longer 8010 at a local industrial user is where we got them here. Some times they only had them in 20 foot sections and we had to cut them down to 10 feet in the parking lot to put flags on them and take home

Art, what do you mean about the G80 in the center tube?

That is a 6' 1010 rail, I've heard of people adding a 3' section with the internal splice plates to launch HP, but even though this stand is very sturdy (another change I made from the typical is to put the weight of the rocket directly over the leg, as it should be) I think I would sandbag the legs to make it rock stable.

 

[Sandy H.]

I like the idea. The HPR pads at clubs around here have a pivotso that the rail can lay sideways to load and then swing up to launch. Other than that feature, seems like a great design!

 

[Curtis Enlow]

Thanks!

I looked really hard at those designs, and honestly, if I had access to welding equipment might have gone that route.

Each design has advantages and tradeoffs, but for the size rockets I will likely be flying with this it seemed the be the best option for simplicity and portability and no need for ground prep to level it.

But I agree, especially for larger HPR rockets they would be the way to go.

 

[Hobie1dog]

nice looking rocket