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Sunday, 20 March 2011 |
 About 2 years ago I came across a 4' length of 6" cardboard tube, an old post pack, in the recycling pile out the front of a local shop. I didn't actually see it as a cardboard tube, instead I saw it as the beginnings of a rocket.
I sat the tube in the corner and pondered what I could do with it. At the time I had only just started thinking about building and flying my Level 1 project, a Binder Design Excel.
Now, with my L1 under my belt, I thought it was time I started to work towards my L2. At the end of December 2010 I started work on "Freefall". Once I had everything worked out in Rocksim, I was able to start work. The nose cone came first.
The nose cone was built up using a central core of dowel, with foam rings slid down over it and glued into place to give the basic shape. I purchased a tin of builders filler (2-part bog) from a local hardware supplier and layered that over the foam. Once dry, the bog was easy enough to sand to the final shape with a belt sander. A final layer of fiberglass was applied over the top to hold everything together.
The motor mount consists of a 54mm motor tube held in place by 3 centering rings. Through the wall fins complete the back end of the rocket. Internal fillets were applied to the fins and the root edge was bonded to the motor tube by strips of fiberglass tape.
I am waiting on delivery of a 70" parachute and motor hardware. Recovery will be handeled by a medium delay on a J275 and the predicted alititude is just over 2,000'.
The finished rocket stands about 6'2" and weighs in at 4.5kg without parachute or motor. |
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Friday, 26 November 2010 |
Back a while, Dick posted on his blog an article about the Raygun Gothic Rocketship. It's big & pretty and I very much wanted one! However lacking large sums of money, the skills to fabricate a 38' tall steel and aluminium rocket and nowhere to store it even if I did build one, I was left to sit and stare longingly at the picutres on the web.
A few nights ago, while again looking at photos of the Rocketship, one of the few bulbs that haven't yet burned out went on - an idea! I could lasercut one of these! Make a little one that would fit in my loungeroom, to sit upon my bookshelf!
A good old-fashoned Googling turned up lots of photos and the one thing that I was hoping to find - a good structural drawing :) I was set!!
I vectorised the artwork and dropped it into CorelDraw. Two evenings later (and three goes cutting it out) I have this!
Click to Embiggen
More photos after the jump! |
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Saturday, 13 November 2010 |
A while back I made up a rocket stand using Balsa. And while it served it's purpose just fine, I thought that I'd have a crack at creating one with the laser.
Click to Embiggen
I created the design in Corel Draw and cut it from 3mm acrylic. I used a heat gun to soften the area of each bend (There's a small notch to indicate where the bend should be). Once formed into shape, it only took a moment for the acrylic to go hard again.
Click to Embiggen
I have uploaded the file onto Thingiverse if you want to make one yourself :) |
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Tuesday, 09 November 2010 |
The 24th of October was the final fly day for TRAAU & we couldn't have asked for a better day! There was a little wind but nothing that would rule out launching. The launch on the 3rd was originally going to be the final launch for the year but the land owner was very supportive and allowed us to launch once more!
Clear skies made for a perfect day and lots of low and mid power rockets got off the pads.
I put up my Binder Design 'Spike' on a G64. Recovery was on a single 12" 'chute about 50m from the launch pad.
Click to Embiggen
The 2nd flight for one of my rockets was my scratch-built down-scale Estes 'Mean Machine' on a C6. It's had a good life and survived a core sample with only a few repairs some time back. This launch was to be it's last. Weighing only 20 grams, the C6 pushed the rocket to some ridiculous altitude, to the amazement of the spectators. The 12" Mylar 'chute popped at apogee and with the light breeze of the day, the rocket floated for ages and was eaten by the waist-high grass.
Click to Embiggen
Check out Flickr for more photos. |
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Tuesday, 09 November 2010 |
A chilly & overcast day greeted us at Serpentine for the October 3 launch. Lots of rockets went up and some of them even came back down! One of the exceptions to this was Karl's "Captain America"
Click to Embiggen
The rocket screamed off the pad and all but disappeared. All eyes were on the sky for this impressive launch but no recovery event was seen. A good deal of searching failed to turn anything up. Karl posted a few "Lost Rocket" posters around the area and two weeks later it was recovered by a farmer. The parachute had failed to deploy and the hard earth ensured that virtually nothing was left. The RMS case was recovered in flyable condition.
With other projects keeping me busy over the last few months, I haven't built anything new to fly, so I pulled out my ever faithful Estes Big Daddy. Painted taxi cab yellow (complete with black check). I put this up on an F for a great flight
Click to Embiggen
See the photos of the day on my Flickr stream. |
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Tuesday, 21 September 2010 |
In a shameless effort to promote the I Build Rockets website, I came up with this nifty little V2 rocket that slots together. You can download and make your own from Thingiverse www.thingiverse.com/thing:4084
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Tuesday, 21 September 2010 |
Since Cathy is both an engraver and cutter, I thought I should give it a go engraving and cutting. Layout done in CorelDraw, engraved and cut from a slab of 8mm Acrylic. Very happy with the way this turned out!
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Tuesday, 21 September 2010 |
Since the arrival of Cathy - my laser cutter (Yes, it has a name, thanks to Mike!) I've been designing new and exciting things. Well, rocket stands at least!
13mm & 18mm Rocket Stands
You can download and make your own from Thingiverse www.thingiverse.com/thing:4139 |
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Wednesday, 18 August 2010 |
Official I Build Rockets merchandise is now available on CafePress.
I Build Rockets - CafePress |
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Tuesday, 27 July 2010 |
After months of designing, building, testing, redesigning, rebuilding, testing, painting and more testing, the Orbital Decay had it's final test launch. My original plan was to design a good solid transition rocket. Something that you can build and fly on Mid-power but also solid and stable enough to fly it for a L1 certification flight.
This weekend's flight was on an Aerotech RMS H128 motor. The wind was blowing but not enough to cancel the day and while smaller rockets were suffering, the Orbital Decay punched a hole in the sky. Now the work begins on production.
Click to embiggen
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