St. Patrick's Day rocket

[jeff_in_AZ]

I was browsing through the local craft store and I saw some
of those green plastic leprechaun hats that they sell for
St. Patrick's Day. I was thinking about building an odd roc
out of one, and was was wondering if anyone else had ever
done so? (Micromeister, this is your cue!) I was thinking of
making something like a UFO with a hat and a cardboard
or foamboard baseplate. Or maybe use 2 hats, one on top,
one upside down, like Art Applewhite's Hefty Serve and Store
UFO. I was planning on using an 18mm engine like a C6-0,
I know it will be draggy and don't expect much height, just
doing this for fun. Any thoughts?

Jeff

 

[pdooley]

It's been done.
I think I saw the pictures on the JimZ website.
Click on the camera icon at bottom of page, look through the listings.
Somebody built a 2 motor cluster from a green leprechaun hat.

 

[Micromeister]

Jeff:
That is truely funny, the wife and I were crusing Micheal's last Saturday, I picked up a package of 4 small green plastic party hats with a 4-leaf clover hat band. said..."Someone should make these fly, but their a little to big for Micro's".
She agreed fully and I put them back, Opting for some smaller symbol's of the holliday I'll be showing later
Please, Please please.... do it Jeff! Should be a hoot on a 18 or even 24mm motor
ODD-ROCS Rule!!!! tee hehe

 

[pdooley]

found it. Gotta love Google.
just search for leprechaun hat rocket.

https://www.dars.org/jimz/gallery/gal208.jpg

 

[DaveCombs]

Originally posted by Micromeister
Opting for some smaller symbol's of the holliday I'll be showing later

I'd take a guess, but that would ruin the surprise. Can't wait to see both of these!

I'm sure some people around here have had their rockets turn into shillelaghs when their ejection charge failed...

 

[Fore Check]

Not an odd-roc, but I've got a St. Pat's rocket myself. It *screams* on a pair of E9-8's.

https://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?threadid=4968

 

[pdooley]

Fore Check-
Do you have a complilation photo gallery of all your builds?
I have seen some nice examples coming from your lair the past few years...

 

[Fore Check]

Do you mean like a shot of the fleet?

(No, I don't have a specific photo gallery...)

Thanks for the compliment!

 

[Micromeister]

here's a photo of the St. Patricks Day party favors the better 2/3rds and I picked up at micheal's. I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to do with these small pieces. but did want to cobble something together for the Narhams Launch March 17th!!!
Looking thru the scrap bin I came up with a 13 & 14mm body tube scraps that would make a dandy motor mount, added a 13mm short engine hook, 3 feet of 130lb kevlar and this Odd-Roc began to form in my head.
fins would end up being the Shamrocks even used small sections of the "Pic stems" as anchor pins epoxied in place.
Pot-O-Gold formed the base/motor mount with our Leprecahaun dancing his jig atop the shinny coins. still wanted to bring the very nice velvet hat into the mix. but wanted it to appear to be being thrown into the air by Little lep! so some clear tubeing and a clear shoulder were divised.

One of the really nice discoveies of this project were that it's not only possible to color epoxy with mixing dies. I also discovered we can make it sparkle by adding very fine clear glitter, like you would with glass bubbles to lighten the epoxy. Worked like a charm was able to attach and coat the nasty external Launch lug and fill the open areas that the fins.
With a little that was left over I also sparkled up the lap a little also

 

[Micromeister]

Heres the results of the build, Got dark on me before I got a change to get it over to the park to swing test Deee rats...
Well What do you Odd-Rocers think?

 

[pdooley]

On first glance nobody would think it was a rocket..

 

[AKPilot]

Originally posted by Micromeister
Heres the results of the build, .
Well What do you Odd-Rocers think?

I think it looks great!

Not sure about the Irish theme, with a Scottish tartan though.

 

[Micromeister]

Originally posted by akpilot
I think it looks great!

Not sure about the Irish theme, with a Scottish tartan though.

Your right AK:
but I was upstairs building in the living room, so I just wanted to get a quick photo. The Couch is green so it didn't give enough contrast... the Throw was handy
Thought you guys might want to see the back side launch lug, etc. after the glitter/green/epoxy mix was applied. also check the leg/bodytube connection which was a raw white 10.5mm tube covered with the mixture Plain background on this one AK

Also happy to report it both swing tested OK and computed out with a slightly more then 1.5 caliber static margin..Yeah!!!!! It'll still be a heads up flight I notices during the swing test the hat seemed to be flexing a little. Not sure if this will effect the flight path and with the fins being so thick I'm also thinking they may be a bit slower to correct any diversion for the straight flight path.

 

[jj94]

That looks GREAT!

 

[jeff_in_AZ]

John,

Your leprechaun rocket is truly amazing!

As far as my Leprechaun hat project, I did
build one and flew it Saturday at the SSS club
launch. It flew well, had a nice straight boost to
about 100 feet and an easy tumble recovery. Here
are some build details:

- I bought the leprechaun hats at Michaels, they were
$1.99 for a bag of 6. They measure about 4.75" long,
4" wide, 2" tall.

- The hats are very thin plastic so I made a base that
the hat sits on from some 1/4" foam board and a 2.5" piece
of BT-5 tubing. See photo. Sturdy cardboard would work ok here too.

- I made the top and bottom foam pieces by tracing around
the top and bottom of the hat, then trimming to fit. You
might be able to eliminate the top piece, but I used it to
help stabilize the engine tube and keep it vertical.

- I cut the holes for the engine tube by finding the center of
the foam pieces with a ruler and then cutting a hole for a BT-5.

- Then I pressed the top foam piece onto the engine tube and glued
with white glue. I made sure the tube was perpendicular to
the base after the glue began to set up.

- After it dried, I turned the hat upside down, put the base inside,
and pushed on the bottom foam piece until it was flush with the brim of
the hat and glued the bottom piece of foam board to the engine tube.
There was about 1/2" of BT-5 sticking out from the bottom.

- I used a thrust ring, and placed it so that there is about
1/4" of engine overhang.

- I used a scratch awl to make a hole in the foam board next to the
engine tube for the launch rod. I started from the bottom, then poked
through the top piece, then put the hat over the base and poked a hole
through the hat. I inserted a launch rod and wiggled it around a little
to make sure the holes in the foam board were large enough with a little
slack. I widened the hole in the hat a little with an exacto knife.

- For final assembly, I used scotch tape to attach the hat to
the base on two edges.

- As far as the launch, I used an A10-PT engine and placed the
hat about 6" up off the blast deflector. It flew surprisingly well
and got a laugh from the crowd. I took a picture but not very
interesting - just a trail of smoke (but I have a nice memory ).

- I see that there are still 5 days left until St.Patrick's Day, maybe I
can upscale the project for an 18mm engine. For another $0.99 I also
bought a larger sized Leprechaun hat that would work well for this.

 

[Lucky 94]

Man, all these odd rocs are really cool. Now you've gone and filled my head with ideas for these kinda rockets. Micromiester, have you flown your leprecon rocket yet?

 

[Micromeister]

Very Very Nice Jeff!
I knew someone would fly those Hats Looks like this same ones we have up here, I was sure our own Rstaff3 would have them converted soon He's more or less the Maryland Mad Hatter LOL!!!!

Lucky94:
No not yet, Narhams has it's monthly sport launch coming up saturday...which happens to be St. Patrick's Day as well. It should fly then. on one of the away pads

 

[Lucky 94]

Post pictures if you could.

 

[Micromeister]

Finally got to fly the "Pot-O-Gold Odd-roc on Saturday. Still wasn't good weather, but sure beat the 6 or so inches of snow and 30degree weather we had Last week
I actually used POG as my spot landing entry in our clubs section meet as it's First Flight... LOL was a fine used of an Odd-Roc
Sorry on didn't catch a better shot in the air but with a digital ya take your chances
It was well worth the trouble building, can't wait til next year to fly him again