Well, I did it this time!

[Senior Space Cadet]

I bought a bunch of components, with the intention of making a large (BT-80 nose cone, BT-60 body) Honest John, but, after making a much smaller Honest John, I decided to make a regular rocket with a BT-80 ogive nose cone on a BT-80 body.
I had already cut the shoulder off of a plastic Big Bertha nose cone, for another project, and was struck by how nice the shoulder would look at the rear of the rocket.
So, I started turning the Big Bertha shoulder into a motor mount. This turned out to be a lot more work than I envisioned.
I made a hole for the motor mount to poke through and slots for the fins, sanded down a centering ring to fit inside the shoulder, and put screw-eyes in the other centering ring, for the shock chord.
Before gluing in the engine block and doing a final fitting, I decided to wait for the motor to arrive, a24mm Aerotech E20-7.
The motor arrived yesterday afternoon and I got busy making sure everything was going to fit together, glued the shoulder/motor mount in and glued the fins.
It looked beautiful.
Then I realized I hadn't attached the shock chord. Yes, I really did that.
So, now, the screw-eyes are way down at the bottom of the body tube.
My current plan is to drill a breathing hole, for an altimeter, right next to one of the screw eyes, and see if I can feed a Kevlar chord through the eye. If I can feed a couple feet through and then pull up the other side with a bicycle spoke attached to a dowel, I can fix it.
Any other ideas?

 

[David Schwantz]

I run cord, nylon and kevlar tubing like this lots. Take a small thread or string, attach a small nut to it, dangle nut at eye until you get it through, now you can either shake it back out or reach down with a long thin wire and pull it out. Now your shock cord is tied onto thread and the thread is used to pull it through eye bolt and back out. Done. Just run the loose end through the loop and pull tight.

 

[Senior Space Cadet]

I run cord, nylon and kevlar tubing like this lots. Take a small thread or string, attach a small nut to it, dangle nut at eye until you get it through, now you can either shake it back out or reach down with a long thin wire and pull it out. Now your shock cord is tied onto thread and the thread is used to pull it through eye bolt and back out. Done. Just run the loose end through the loop and pull tight.

Or maybe a fishing weight. Good plan. I think I'll give it a try.

 

[David Schwantz]

Good luck.

 

[Senior Space Cadet]

I used too small of an eye to run a nut or fishing weight through, but my method worked perfectly. Luckily an eye screw was right next to a fin, which made it easy to drill a hole in the right place. I hadn't planned on putting a hole their, but now, if I want to use an altimeter, I already have one breathing hole.

 

[David Schwantz]

Good plan.