What did you do rocket wise today?

[dhbarr]

Made a set of 29mm carbon fiber anchor points. Also started making a 29mm 5.5:1 VK mold.

View attachment 479441

What tubing is that sized for, custom roll-wrap?

 

[jqavins]

At first glance I thought those were made from the baking soda-CA material. Does anyone know how strong that stuff is? It'd be great to have a simple (ish) way to make cast parts like the above.

 

[Hobie1dog]

My old Radio Shack scanner died, so I’m on the hunt for a new ham HT that’ll work great for fox hunting a TeleMini.

Get a Kenwood TH-D74A, you can't take all your money in your casket with you, spend it on all the good stuff.
https://www.kenwood.com/usa/com/amateur/th-d74a/or a used D72 model
https://www.kenwood.com/usa/com/amateur/th-d72a/

 

[Zertyme]

What tubing is that sized for, custom roll-wrap?

29mm ID tubing.
I roll wrap them myself, 29mm ID, 1mm thick. From left to right: S2glass, UD prepreg sanded, UD prepreg unsanded.

 

[Lee]

I am intrigued with carbon fiber. Did you make molds to manufacture these parts?

 

[Zertyme]

I am intrigued with carbon fiber. Did you make molds to manufacture these parts?

The prepreg is wrapped around a mandrel (aluminum, steel tube......), followed by shrink tape then a cure in the oven. I only make a mold for my nosecones/tailcones.

 

[Back_at_it]

Did a quick clone of the old Nova Payloader with some original payload bay parts I had left over. Short story, I built this rocket back when I was in my teens. Flew it countless times. Not the most ground breaking design but a nice looking rocket once finished and with the rather wide fins it was dead stable and just heavy enough to fly on a C and get back in the park we flew in back in the day.

After countless flights, 30-40-50 who knows, the body tube was getting a bit weak so the plan was to do one more flight then retire it. Flight day was dead calm so I sent it up on a C motor. The winds was left to right the entire day and all of the previous 20ish rockets landed in the open field. The wind direction literally changed direction during that flight and started blowing in the opposite direction.

At ejection the screw eye ripped itself from the balsa coupler. The payload section came falling back and landed about 10ft from the pad. The rocket body floated onto the nearby train tracks and a train came by before we could get the rocket back. It was literally run over by a 100+ car freight train. All we could find were bits and pieces of red body tube and balsa that had been smashed, sliced and just generally destroyed as you would expect by getting run over by a train for 10 mins.

I saved the payload section and threw it in a box. While consolidating some of the range boxes I have laying around I found that old payload section and decided it was time. So here we are 30ish years later.

Started with the left over parts. Basically I had the clear payload section and the nose cone. The balsa piece was scraped as I don't need a repeat of 30 yrs ago To this I added a 3 inch piece of coupler that was sourced from BMS along with a bulkhead and a screw eye to attach the recovery system. Note the lower half of the coupler has been soaked in CA and sanded to slide nicely in the body tube.



Used some BT50 heavy wall tubing for the main body. Cut 3 new fins based on templates I made back as a kid. Bodytube was marked and had the outer layer removed for fin attachment.

In this pic, the motor mount is already inserted. Nothing fancy. Just a piece of BT20 with a motor block. I did add Kevlar around the top ring for a leader for the shock cord.


Assembly of the coupler is completed.



Sorry no pics in primer. I hit everything with two coats of SEM high build primer and sanded with 400 grit then straight to paint.




Need to cut some vinyl decals but should have this one wrapped up tonight.

 

[jqavins]

At ejection the screw eye ripped itself from the balsa coupler. The payload section came falling back and landed about 10ft from the pad. The rocket body floated onto the nearby train tracks and a train came by before we could get the rocket back. It was literally run over by a 100+ car freight train.

Then the road runner poked his head out, said "Meep meep", and ran away.

View attachment 479468

View attachment 479470

Shortest Build Thread Ever.

Nice job.

 

[Back_at_it]

Then the road runner poked his head out, said "Meep meep", and ran away. Shortest Build Thread Ever.

Nice job.

Yeah, sometimes you just can’t make this stuff up. When I was a kid I had the worst luck.

Figured I would do something productive in between building my warlock

 

[Pappy]

so far, just made this tiny shelf from scraps for my micro saturn v

 

[GrouchoDuke]

Get a Kenwood TH-D74A, you can't take all your money in your casket with you, spend it on all the good stuff.

Wow, that's snazzy. Thanks for the recommendation!

 

[GrouchoDuke]

Made a set of 29mm carbon fiber anchor points. Also started making a 29mm 5.5:1 VK mold.

Gorgeous work. H/I record attempt rocket?

 

[Zertyme]

Gorgeous work. H/I record attempt rocket?

Maybe at some points, the waivers around here aren't quite high enough for that... (France)
3d printed nosecone plug for the mold. It's barely long enough for a Pro29 3G + recovery + electronics.

 

[GrouchoDuke]

Maybe at some points, the waivers around here aren't quite high enough for that... (France)
3d printed nosecone plug for the mold. It's barely long enough for a Pro29 3G + recovery + electronics.

Very nice. I’d love to see a post on how the plug & mold work goes.

 

[Cape Byron]

"The first coat of primer is only to show how much work you still have to do." - Bruce Lamington

Sleep. I remember it well, but not over the past few weeks...

Today's monumental mistake was pulling fillets with Titebond instead of white glue. They'll be dry in the same time a glacier has moved about a metre. They will also shrink and look like a dropped pie. No matter, I'll (eventually) pull white glue fillets over the top and call it done.

 

[NateB]

I made an addition to my rocket library. Some light reading material is always a good thing.

 

[teepot]

I have 2 of those books. Today I cut out and then shaped 4 fins. I use my belt sander to get the airfoil roughed out and my orbital sander with 220 grit for final sanding. I cut the fin slots with a Dremel and a cutoff wheel. Then tacked the fins down with JB Weld Kwick Weld. Held the fins in a fin jig I made from foam board and a template from Payloadbay. 5 minutes later it's time for external filets. I use PC Super epoxy for filets. It sets in an hour or two. Full cure in 24 hours. Sanded the nose cone with 400 then 800. Put some BB's and epoxy around a threaded rod with an eye nut in the nose cone. Tomorrow on to the whistle pods.

 

[DigBaddy]

Got the decals on the Solar Warrior. First time using Micro Set to help the process and it seemed to make things go better. Need to wait for cooler temps and lower humidity for clear coat.

 

[Sooner Boomer]

Bought up all (2) the Baby Berthas at Hobby Lobby. Getting ready for AirFest. Will (try to) fly one in 29mm, 24mm, and 18mm. Will 3 13mm motor mounts fit?
Also picked up laptop drawing board - working on new logo for local Tripoli prefecture.

 

[Adam3836]

Ok so my kid got his new lunch box now where is mine lol lol

 

[neil_w]

Flew some rockets for the first time in far too long, at GSSS launch in NJ. It may sound weird but it feels like an enormous weight is off my shoulders.

Despite somewhat iffy conditions, everything I brought with me (including all previously unflown rockets) made it into the air, including the Mini A Heli (twice, not blowing apart), LauncherX, Skywriter Deluxe, Plasma Dart (twice), and Blackfish, plus a Crayon test flight and one Quinstar flight just for fun. Flight details will be posted to the appropriate build thread.

All flew arrow-straight and were recovered successfully, with only the LauncherX sustaining minor cosmetic damage. I wasn't flying very high (small field and windy) but man oh man was it fun.

 

[Scrapmaster87]

Did some design work on a Venn Diagram based rocket. BT-80 LPR tubing and it'll fly on MPR 24mm and 29mm motors. Sometime soon I'll get a build thread going. Cutting the interlocking rings will be ... exciting.

View attachment 479127 View attachment 479128
View attachment 479129

If it's anything like my tubefin with raked leading and trailing edges, it oughta be a great whistler!

 

[Five]

Finished my Apogee SR 72 Darkbird

I finally launched it today. It went up straight but did not glide at all, just spun around till it hit the ground. I lost the nosecone and one fin.

 

[Cape Byron]

A couple of quick primer coats on Brocket, ugly, ugly, ugly, fillets and all. Got to get testing in tomorrow as burn bans come in at midnight. I know I can get an exemption permit, but it has to be done face-to-face with the local fire service captain and he's right on the edge of the travel permit zone.

I can't see any hassles with the rocket: it's essentially our Gooney Vostok with different fins...

 

[Old School Doug]

We've been experiencing pretty localized drought conditions and the ponds that litter our clubs launch site are almost completely dry. So it is only natural that my second launch of the day found the last remaining 3 sq/yds of water left in one of them. Fortunately I was able to salvage the rocket. Much flying time lost drying and reviving the tracker, chute release, and FlightSketch.

 

[dhbarr]

Mostly just supervising. I promised him he could come to AIRFEST this year, so he's trying to crank out a cert flight.

 

[GrouchoDuke]

Made a new launch tower.

 

[neil_w]

Flew some rockets for the first time in far too long, at GSSS launch in NJ. It may sound weird but it feels like an enormous weight is off my shoulders.

Despite somewhat iffy conditions, everything I brought with me (including all previously unflown rockets) made it into the air, including the Mini A Heli (twice, not blowing apart), LauncherX, Skywriter Deluxe, Plasma Dart (twice), and Blackfish, plus a Crayon test flight and one Quinstar flight just for fun. Flight details will be posted to the appropriate build thread.

All flew arrow-straight and were recovered successfully, with only the LauncherX sustaining minor cosmetic damage. I wasn't flying very high (small field and windy) but man oh man was it fun.

I neglected to mention two things that surprised me, and I spent some time pondering:

1) Flying my 24mm rockets to 300' was surprisingly satisfying. Prior to this launch I wouldn't have thought it was worth the trouble, and mainly went because I had to fly *something*. In the future I'm going to worry even less about how high I fly. Certainly, I'll normally fly as high as the conditions allow, but I won't allow a low ceiling to discourage me from flying at all.

2) I'm normally a stickler for maintaining 50 ft/s rod speed. This time I didn't have that luxury, because the 3/16" rod was only 36" (I normally sim 48", but will be changing that in the future), and I needed to fly smaller motors to keep altitude down. So for sure most of my C11 flights were exiting the rod significantly slower than 50 ft/s, and it was breezy. And yet, not a single one weathercocked significantly, and all flew straight as I could ever ask for. I don't know if I was just lucky or what, but I think I'm going to be relaxing my rod speed requirements in the future for rockets of this class. Certainly, I was evaluating each flight and if things went pear-shaped I was prepared to shut it down, but really everything was great all day.

 

[GrouchoDuke]

About a week ago, I played with several techniques for beveling fins on a belt & disc sander. I now use my test pieces as knives around the rocket shop.

 

[Cape Byron]

A bit of this...

A work in progress.