What did you do rocket wise today?

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Today, nothing. Waiting for my Estes Goblin to show up in the mail. It's due August 2nd.

But tomorrow? Who knows? My local club is in summer hiatus so I may pay a visit to one of the local fire departments and see if I can get approval to launch elsewhere.

Yesterday though I went and bought a ton of 13mm and 18mm motors, including a pair of Q-Jet D16-4s. The guy at the counter was about my age and we swapped stories about our favorite big launches, that was fun.
 
Today I signed a bunch of copies of ECP 2e.

Yesterday I gave my TRATECH presentation on basic propellant ingredient properties, formulation, and a typical processing procedure. To a packed room. As I told the crowd, "I spent 42 years teaching chemistry to students who [mostly] didn't want to learn it. It was so gratifying to teach again, and to teach to people who really wanted to hear what I had to say."

Best -- Terry
 
Dry sanded the filler primer down on the aft section of my Intimidator. Wasn't as bad a task as I expected, although, not something I'll be looking into as a career choice. 240 grit dry did a pretty good job of getting it smooth... dug out the hundred year old tube of Nitro-Stan red putty for the little, obvious defects... but not tonight.
 
Wally Ferrer said:
It was tad windy this morning, but no rain. I flew my second L2 attempt, shortened NSL Big Bertha on a J270W-12, failed to arm the FS for launch, so no flight data. Simmed to around 2600 ft. A tallish rocket from the contest range lawn darted shortly after I lost sight of mine, and Greg the LCO also thought it was mine, I was broken-hearted, but as I was headed towards it, the owner started pulling it out of the ground, and Greg announced that dart wasn't in fact mine, that mine had landed close to a trailer out in the recovery area, sure enough, there it was. Again, the JLCR had deployed, but the Roto-sail again failed to open. This time it did NOT take a core sample, and Greg deemed it was successful as there was no damage and it could fly again, so I am now L2 certified with NAR.:dancingelephant::wos_love::headspinning::cheers:

View attachment 475022
Click to expand...

Congrats. Glad your rocket made it back down in good shape!
 
Really crappy application of old primer on new rocket. It's 'cured' for a frickin' month. I swear it's rubber based. Gums up ordinary sandpaper like the residue from an 18 months old's diaper. Now very seriously considering sand blasting the darn thing! They frown on open fires in my neighborhood....
 
Wally Ferrer said:
This time it did NOT take a core sample, and Greg deemed it was successful as there was no damage and it could fly again, so I am now L2 certified with NAR.:dancingelephant::wos_love::headspinning:
Click to expand...
messedupryan said:
Oh yeah, I also got my level 1 today. Video and proper post to come later. (for now I’m taking my wife to the casino and we’re celebrating!!!)View attachment 475086 View attachment 475089
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Congrats! Glad to see so much rocket flying, certifying, and everyone having fun!
 
Today I sanded and sanded and sanded some more. Since I was feeling crappy earlier in the week I didn't post two rockets I finished. The first one is a 2.6" BMS heavy tube with a 38mm x 9" mmt. The fins are 1/8th ply. It is 55" long and weighs 41 ounces with the chutes. It is dual deploy. The fins are a box style. I'm calling it AGM 148 Boxer. The second rocket a 2.6" BMS light tube. It has a 29mm x 9" mmt. It has 3 fins of 1/4 ply. It is single deploy. It's 42 " long and weighs a scant 21 ounces with a chute. It's the lightest rocket I've built in a long time. I'm calling it Goldfinger 2 because Goldfinger the first was salvaged for parts. This rockets paint gave me fits. I painted the body regular Rusto gold metallic. I masked the body with Tamiya tape and sprayed the fins red. When I pulled the masking off after about an hour some of the paint came with it. So I masked the fins and resprayed the gold. When I pulled the masking off,20210727_024616[913].jpg20210728_142134[918].jpg20210724_032602[888].jpg everywhere there has been gold overspray the paint came off with the tape. So rather than start an endless cycle of mask and paint I painted the red with the same color latex paint from a can with a brush. It isn't pretty, but will have to do. That's the second time I've used tamiya tape with bad results. The first time it left residue. Now I might have caused it by leaving it outside in 110* heat. And the gold isn't very durable. I'll see what happens the next time. I'll include pictures of the rockets and the bad paint.
 
Got my 7.5" t-loc fin can glued in. Very nerve-racking as you have to slide the inner door holder in while glueing but not get glue where it doesn't belong.20210730_190707.jpg20210730_190952.jpg
 
Trying something with rail guides.

The short one is cut to be flush with the aft end and to be lighter.

The long one will be positioned ahead of the CG and being double the weight, will help move CG forward ever so slightly.

Red painted spacers are needed because of a decorative strap around the nose cone.
16A5DB6A-C951-4FED-92E6-0AB49122869C.jpeg
 
If you use the half guide, sand the sharp edges. I've used them like that and when I leave them sharp, the sharp edges chip but if I sand a 1/16" chamfer they don't chip nearly as much
 
Congrats on the L2 Wally 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

QUOTE="Wally Ferrer, post: 2163588, member: 29426"]
It was tad windy this morning, but no rain. I flew my second L2 attempt, shortened NSL Big Bertha on a J270W-12, failed to arm the FS for launch, so no flight data. Simmed to around 2600 ft. A tallish rocket from the contest range lawn darted shortly after I lost sight of mine, and Greg the LCO also thought it was mine, I was broken-hearted, but as I was headed towards it, the owner started pulling it out of the ground, and Greg announced that dart wasn't in fact mine, that mine had landed close to a trailer out in the recovery area, sure enough, there it was. Again, the JLCR had deployed, but the Roto-sail again failed to open. This time it did NOT take a core sample, and Greg deemed it was successful as there was no damage and it could fly again, so I am now L2 certified with NAR.:dancingelephant::wos_love::headspinning::cheers:

View attachment 475022
[/QUOTE]
 
I deprecated a PC from its normal duty as the family pc due to getting a fresher one given to me by my work when my new work pc arrived. Anyway, the 11 year old Dell was a bit slow so I purchased a 500GB SSD for it to speed it up. It will be used as GSE for rocketry now. I couldn't figure out how I had used over 650GB with not much more than an operating system and some small programs on it. Further digging found about 150GB of rocketry simulation files from over the years, in Rocksim :eek:. I deleted them and now it is happily cloning the HDD across to the new Solid State Drive.
 
I finally made some progress on the DX3 after a distracting week. The motor mount is now epoxied into the body tube, which took some practice runs - it looks like the front received enough epoxy to hold. I'm new to both HPR and epoxy, so this is probably far more exciting for me than for others. :D I am learning that HPR is a different world. And thanks to the HPR forum for teaching me about shock cord protectors.

IMG_9746.JPG
IMG_9749.JPG
 
ewomack said:
I'm new to both HPR and epoxy, so this is probably far more exciting for me than for others. :D I am learning that HPR is a different world. And thanks to the HPR forum for teaching me about shock cord protectors.
Click to expand...
Ah, but seeing folks happily enter new realms of rocketry is sufficiently exciting.
 
Antares JS said:
After 3 exhausting hours with my new sanding stick, my 54/1706 case finally fits in the Phoenix. It's still tight but it's manageable. I think I got a piece of blue tube with an ID that was a wee bit too small.

I'm going to ice my arm now.

View attachment 475179
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I've have a stick just like that for the same reason.
 
Third and best day at LDRS. Mostly clear and Mostly calm. One each A, G, H and I motors. Someone found my crayon rocket I lost on Friday. And I won a Quest Bright Hawk in the alphabet contest.

Now it is off to the banquet and meeting if my motel doesn't burn down. The fire alarm started going off but stopped before I could get my shoes and socks on.
 

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