Hi everyone,
Here is what concerns me about fiberglass. I am quoting a page from the Apogee Components website, where Tim writes about a certain rocket:
"Since it is fiberglass, you need to take health and safety precautions to prevent the fibers of glass from getting into your lungs. A particle mask and disposable gloves are a minimum precaution to take when building the rocket."
Of course, if I didn't have to do any sanding, that would solve the issue of the particles. And not having to worry about zippering my rocket would also be nice.
If I were to go the fiberglass route, I would really want to get a rocket requiring little or no sanding.
I definitely want to go for L2.
Stanley
I would not worry about the fiberglass so much - I think it is way easier to work with than cardboard.
First thing you need to do is wash all your FG parts - easy to do in a mud sink, outside with a garden hose or (since it is winter), just wash all your parts in the bathtub. For this part, the only PPE you "need" is kitchen rubber gloves (the kind that go up your forearm a bit). Main protection concern is that the edges can be a bit sharp and the rubber gloves do a nice job protecting your arms while you are shoving your hand inside the tube. Nothing special on the soap - plain dishwashing soap works fine. The FG has mold release agents on it (stuff they spray on a mold to keep the FG from sticking to it) and you want to wash that off. It can hinder epoxy adhesion.
It probably is not a bad idea to lightly sand your parts, but you don't need to. As was noted earlier, the only real vital sanding is to rough up any areas you are going to have epoxy adhere to. You don't need to pull out the belt sander here - just some 100 grit on a block or just the sandpaper, rough up the surface a bit. You don't need full HAZMAT gear. Any mask will work fine for light sanding - you should have a bunch around for COVID anyway and wear some nitrile gloves to protect your hands. I sand over some paper towels and then just wrap up any dust and throw the paper towels out. Now that I think about it, the same PPE precautions you take for COVID should work fine for an FG kit.
Later, if you are scratch building and cutting, heavy sanding, CNCing, etc FG or CF, you should take much more stringent precautions, but the parts that come from a kit are 90% ready to go once you wash them, so you shouldn't need to worry about that now. Save that for your Level 3!
Honestly, I think the best kit out there for an L2 cert is the Level 2 from Apogee. It is basically a Madcow Nike Smoke with a payload bay added and an Ogive nosecone subbed in for the Nike Smoke nosecone (you don't want to deal with a Nike Smoke right now, the nosecone that comes with that kit will require you to use standoffs on the rail buttons). The Level 2 rocket from Apogee literally comes with everything you need in the kit except electronics. If you don't want to use Dual Deploy on your cert, just fly it single deploy. However, the nice thing about a rocket like the Level 2 is you can fly the snot out of it on Level 1 motors to test it out and really get comfortable with Dual Deploy. The Level 2 on an I599 only goes to 1000 feet and really blasts it off the pad - great motor to learn your Level 2 on. If you fly it a bunch of times on an I motor with dual deploy, you will get really comfortable with it and, when you finally fly that J, it will just be another launch, not a nail biting event.
After that, the Level 2 scales up nicely. I have built a lot of bigger and heavier rockets, but I still love pulling that Level 2 out sometimes and letting her rip. I flew mine down at MDRA in December on a K690 to 8000 feet at just under Mach 1 and it came back to me in fine fashion.
Frankly, it is probably the easiest 4-fins-and-a-nosecone FG rocket out there. It really is dirt simple to build. And rock solid.
I did a build thread on it here:
https://www.rocketryforum.com/threads/apogee-level-2-build.162403/ which includes some videos of the launches.