Red Columbine - A Rocket Based On A Flower

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Finished the "cellulose-PVA composite" fins today.

I used my jigsaw to trim them and then a belt sander to smooth the cut edges. Pretty impressive how strong these are.

Then did a mock up just to get a visual. Pretty pleased with the results thus far.

Kind of mind boggling the possibilities for making pieces - parts using this process.

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Has to be contest grade balsa (much more flexible) and must be bent across its width.
My minimal experience with contest-grade balsa leads me to say that I wouldn't touch it for rockets. Way too flexible. The effort it would take to reinforce it properly would defeat the purpose.

Of course, building flying airplane models is a different thing, and I can see where it would be an excellent material. But for rockets fins.... well I'd need to be convinced.
 
My minimal experience with contest-grade balsa leads me to say that I wouldn't touch it for rockets. Way too flexible. The effort it would take to reinforce it properly would defeat the purpose.

Of course, building flying airplane models is a different thing, and I can see where it would be an excellent material. But for rockets fins.... well I'd need to be convinced.
1/16" might be pushing it. 3/32" or 1/8" isn't too bad. That said, I used 1/16" contest balsa bent into a ring for my Ring Hawk glider (basically a dual ring- finned rocket that glides when the rings are separated). I did end up coating the rings with dope to strengthen them however.
 
Worked on the motor mount today.

1/8" thick basswood ply for the back ring. 1/8" papered balsa for the forward ring. Motor tube is double wall BT-50H / BT-104

Doing this one a bit differently. Centering ring outside diameters are oversized. Once the glue for the sub-assy is dry I'm going to use a fixture and chuck the BT-50 into my lathe, then turn the outside diameter of the rings. That'll ensure everything is nice and concentric.

At least that's the plan. :computer:
 

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Turned the motor mount rings on the lathe this morning using my BT-50 fixture.... easy peazy...

The tube just slips over the fixture and is a friction fit. Here's a video: BT-50 fixture
 

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More wood lathe turned parts. These are the 3/4" diameter spheres that will glue to the fins. I made them out of some southern yellow pine scrap I had.
 

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Impressive. Love your precision. How did you get all the spheres the same size? By eye?

Thanks Eric.

This was my 1st time turning sphere's.

I turned the dowel to 3/4" dia.... (measured with vernier calipers) then layed out the lengths (see pencil marks). Here's more information on laying out the spheres.

I then free handed the spherical shape with a skew chisel, and from there sanding made the shape fairly easy. I needed 5 spheres.... I ended up making 7. One was a bit to big, the other a bit to small.
 
Depending on what you can find off the shelf a bumblebee or butterfly kite could be converted to a chute. It would be rad to see a bumblebee airdrop your flower to safety.
 
Interesting. That is connected to the motor mount tube, or the shock cord? Is that single use? Sorry if I missed this discussion before, if so never mind.
 
Interesting. That is connected to the motor mount tube, or the shock cord? Is that single use? Sorry if I missed this discussion before, if so never mind.

I'll take the crepe paper and cut it down to 1/2" width. Then the streamer wraps around the MM until it fit's snugly into the C-80 body and a dime is then taped to the outside end of the streamer.

So the streamer connects to nothing related to the rocket itself. It should unfurl and fall to earth.... and if it doesn't it's still done it's job by protecting the chute.
 
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Rear eject clearly the way to go. Unfortunately, given it will come down nose first, you won’t be able to “stick” the landing. Are you flying on a gras field? If not, you may want to put a piece of tape or something removable on the nose to protect it from impact damage.
 
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