Recent content by joshb

While there are some people who are either scared of those who push the boundaries or see terr'ist potential in everything, there is a common belief among the real amateur rocketry community (i.e. Armadillo Aerospace, XCOR, etc.) that a rocket, guided or not, is simply a transportation system...

If you're just getting started, just get a basic Skill 1 or 2 kit that you like to start with. You'll learn a lot while putting it together and also while flying it. Work your way up to the harder and more realistic kits so that you gather experience. Nothing would be worse than putting 100...

Test 14, 15, 16:

Two estimates: 1) Fast 2) High :speakcool: Actually I have simmed the flight and took some crude measurements from the first few frames of each launch, and I think these rockets peaked somewhere between 700 and 1000 feet. The second one had more fuel and burned a little longer, so maybe went...

Test 12 and 13, launches:

It's pretty easy to clean anyway by poking and scraping with a dowel. I have done some motors with fuel grain loaded into a cardboard tube, which is then loaded into the motor, rather than directly casting the fuel into the motor. In those cases there was some burnt paper leftover that...

Test 11 completed and uploaded. Good test with surprising result: PVC glowed! No deformation and only 0.2g mass lost before to after the test, so I can reuse this. The fuel was a single 24g fully-cored grain. It looks like as the fuel burned closer to the walls the chamber fire was intense...

The only exception to the LEUP rules is if the motor you have built is intended to have less than 62.5 grams of fuel (combination of all fuel grains, not individual grains). Also you don't necessarily need a certification from NAR or TRA to launch a high powered rocket, you could do it on your...

I've been doing some more static testing and have uploaded a batch of videos. Details and results are in the videos and attached descriptions on YouTube. The longest video is 2 min 19 secs. This is my experimental rocketry video playlist...

Did you make a clear PVC motor yet? Video?

This post is inspired by what Art said on his thread, but I didn't want to thread-jack him. I just want to emphasize the safety aspect for all those out there who may want to try making their own motors. As Art says, the anytime you have mixed propellant (kno3 + sugar or any other variety of...

All good points. For this particular motor, the nozzle is way oversized, so wasn't worried about that. Also, the very tiny amount of napkin (like 1/16th of a regular napkin) I believe is entirely destroyed during the fuse burning. (I verified this while testing the fuse design... nothing left...

Yeah I saw that one, too. That's actually a more common technique that what I did. There's a couple videos that show that method. I wanted to try one that was completely reusable though, since I was still learning how to make the fuel correctly. Saves cash! Search for James Yawn and...

I made some PVC sugar motors this weekend. Videos results are up: 1/2" PVC Sugar Rocket Motor - Assembly and 6-21-2008 Test 1: 1/2" PVC Sugar Rocket Motor - 6-21-2008 Tests 2 3 4: Click the "Watch in High Quality" link below the view count if you have enough bandwidth and can wait a minute...

Reverend, thanks for the rocket motor tutorial video. Miming it is kinda funny but works. :) I'd like to see how the motor is designed and how you load the grains... do you stack them end-to-end, or with a gap? Would you ever make a hole in the center for faster burning? How volatile...