The Future Experiment

Click here for the previous post.

As detailed in my previous post, I recently completed the Estes Reflector, and despite a few bad turns during construction, I managed to make the rocket look pretty nice.

But I wanted to try something I'd read about online - giving the rocket a nice shiny, protective coating, using Pledge floor polish "with Future Shine."

Rocketeers often refer to this stuff simply as "Future."

The rocket was already pretty shiny before I tried this. I used some Krylon gloss white enamel for the undercoat and some Rust-oleum red gloss enamel for the fin can, and other than a few spots where I wet sanded the paint to remove some flaws, the rocket looked pretty good. But I needed to test this stuff out before trying it on a rocket which was more precious to me.

One reason I decided to try this application is that I thought it might be a good, easy way to seal waterslide decals in place with a shiny, protective coating. Perhaps it would also turn out to be an easy way to fix a less-than stellar paint job. With the troubled history of this rocket, and the fact that I tend to fly my larger models more frequently than my smaller ones now, I was willing to risk making a bit of a mess with this rocket, to see if it was as easy and effective as it sounded.

I have gotten some pretty good results on my rockets lately. My Estes Astron Sprint XL clone turned out to be as smooth and shiny as any rocket I'd ever built - darn near perfect.

My Estes Goblin, too, had turned out very nice.

But I thought I might like to add a clear protective layer to seal and protect the decals.

On the Astron Sprint XL, this would have been a good idea, as the black band near the nose cone has since started flaking off, and I haven't even flown it yet. I'll need to take that decal off, and paint a black band on.

A gloss clear coat - clear spray paint, that is - is an obvious choice for sealing and protecting decals. But I put in a lot of work on these paint jobs, and it included a little bit of wet sanding of tiny flaws in the paint, followed by polishing the rocket before adding the decals in the first place. What if my clear coat came out bumpy and irregular? I'd be hesitant to sand it smooth, as I might sand through it and into the decals. I'd rather put nothing on these rockets than ruin my work. Perhaps Future would be a good solution; it certainly sounded that way, from what I had read. But I wasn't about to do it on my best builds without testing it out first.

* * *

Before I get to the Future experiment, a word about the build, for those of you who may be building a small payload-carrying rocket like the Reflector. There are several of these model rockets, and they're pretty popular.

The face card of a lot of these little payloaders touts their "huge payload section." While it may look spacious on the outside, inside the payload compartment is another story.

The payload section is made up of a balsa nose cone at the top, a length of body tube in the middle, and a balsa transition at the bottom. The transition allows the diameter of the rocket to get wider at the payload section than the main airframe of the booster. The payload space is therefore inside the body tube, between the transition and the nose cone. As with all model rockets, the nose cone and the transition have shoulders - lengths of balsa slightly narrower than the base of the nose cone or the top of the transition - which allow you to fit them into the payload tube. The shoulders have to be long enough so that the payload section stays together in flight. What you end up with is a space only about an inch long at best inside the payload section.

The payload space inside the Reflector. Image from this Instructables project.

Not a lot of things you might want to fly will fit into that little space, but you can't simply cut the shoulders off and call it problem solved, or the rocket won't stay in one piece for flight. I wanted to be able to fly my Jolly Logic Altimeter 2, which is about 2 inches long, in this rocket.

What I did to accommodate the altimeter was to cut off about half the shoulder on the nose cone, and just a little off the upper shoulder of the transition. I left enough on the transition so that I could still get a good friction fit between the payload tube and the transition shoulder.

The big piece is from the nose cone shoulder. The thinner piece is just the conical top of the transition shoulder.

The transition piece still has enough length to be safely friction fit into the payload tube.

The nose cone would have to be glued on. There simply wouldn't be enough shoulder there to keep the parts together securely. When opening the payload, the nose cone and payload tube are now one piece.

But there still wouldn't be quite enough room. Using a drill, I carved out a little niche into the shoulder of the nose cone. Now the altimeter just fits perfectly into the payload section.

See it in there?

When you use a payload section like this, you might need to wrap some tape around the shoulders of the transition and nose cone (if you didn't need to glue it on) to get a nice snug fit with the payload tube. You don't want things to pop open during flight and lose your altimeter!

Also, it's best to drill a couple small holes, called static ports, into the payload tube. Altimeters use barometric pressure to measure altitude. The payload section needs to be ventilated so the air pressure inside matches the air pressure outside the rocket. Anywhere from two to four holes is recommended. For this small payload section, I drilled two holes, on opposite sides of the payload section, each one 1/16 inch in diameter. If you have a larger rocket, you can do a Google search for "static port hole size" to figure out how big and how many static ports you will need.

Back to the Future experiment...

* * *

When trying out a new material or building technique, it's always a good idea to try it out on something inexpensive or replaceable before committing to doing it with a rocket that's really dear to you. First, you want to make sure you've understood how to do it correctly. Sometimes you misunderstand the directions the first time you read them.

Also, sometimes a new skill isn't as easy to a beginner as it is to someone who uses it all the time. My first attempts at using paper skins to reinforce and hide the wood grain on fins were disastrous, and I still haven't quite gotten the technique down, even though a lot of people swear by it, and find it really easy.

Thirdly, sometimes a thing doesn't work - at least, for you - they way they say it will, or the way it works for them.

I'd heard of using Future a few times before, but the most complete explanation I had found was on this thread on The Rocketry Forum.

It seemed pretty straightforward, and the basic steps were as follows: Get some Pledge with Future Shine acrylic floor polish and a clean spray bottle. Optionally, add a little bit of Simple Green cleaner (which I didn't use). Make sure the nose cone is separated from the body of the rocket with a little tape, and spray the rocket down till completely wet. Go back several minutes later to remove any drops hanging from the bottom of the rocket with a paper towel, so they don't harden there. A day later, you'll have a shiny rocket.

It seemed to make sense, and it sounded so easy! This could be great! I thought. This could change everything.

What I pictured happening was that I'd spray the rocket down with the Future, it would level out and all the excess would drip off, and I'd have a nice, even, smooth, shiny protective surface over the whole rocket.

What happened when I tried this was different.

First of all, though I did blot off the excess that was dripping down off the base of the rocket, I still got a little pool of material on the trailing edges of the fins. As the Future started drying, it became gummy, and I ended up with some uneven, gooey bits. Attempting to dab it off with a paper towel, I merely made it more uneven.

Look closely, and you'll see a gooey drip slowly hardening on the corner of the fin.

The payload tube also experienced some swelling. You'll have noticed the spiral grooves running around the outside of the body tubes when you build your rockets, and perhaps you've filled those in, as I do, with wood filler.

There's a second spiral groove, running around the inside of the tube. I'm not sure how, but the Future seemed to have gotten inside the payload tube, and the internal groove started to bulge outward.

 The bumpy texture here isn't due to the Future. It's orange peel, and it's a flaw in the paint job that has nothing to do with applying Future. It can be sanded out and polished, but after the trouble I had with this build, I decided not to bother. But you can see the internal grooves bulging through the body tube after Future was applied.

According the the directions of the post, the nose cone is supposed to be set loosely on the rocket, or the Future will wick in and glue the nose cone to the rocket. In my case, the nose cone was glued on, so it was the transition I had to worry about.

First, I neglected to pull the payload tube apart from the transition before spraying, so that got stuck. But even having loosened the transition from the main body tube and masked it with tape, the whole thing still got stuck together.

Once the Future was dry, I tried to pull the payload section off the rocket, and it was firmly glued on! I was determined to get it off there, and while I did get it off, I ended up crushing the body tube slightly and damaging the decals a little from pulling so hard.

I got the payload tube and transition separated after wiggling a hobby knife and a fingernail into the joint. There was some slight damage there, but it was minimal.

Rather than leveling out and running off smoothly, the Future dried on the rocket in streaks. Some droplets didn't run off at all, and in fact hardened into acrylic blobs which won't come off the rocket.

Streaks, looking a bit like sweat, can best be seen on the left-hand fin.

Hard blobs of dried polish, the result of droplets which did not run off or self-level

The streaks and blobs may be removable, with the use of water and ammonia, but that would most likely take off the decals.

The one thing this does seem to have done is to seal the decals to the rocket - and if you look closely, you can see that I had a few loose edges which I was unable to burnish to the rocket surface, so this may at least prevent those from peeling off.

But overall, my first attempt at trying this out was a little detrimental to the final appearance of the rocket.

* * *

So, what could I do differently next time?

Well, I could decide that this technique isn't for me. I have been getting better at getting a nice smooth paint job lately, so perhaps I don't need this one.

Or, I could try again, but go about it differently.

On asking advice on the Rocketry Forum thread to which I linked above, I found a few different opinions (you'll always find a dozen different opinions when you talk rocket building with people). But one thing that a lot of people seem to agree on is that what I did here was too much. If and when you use Future, you need to do so lightly!

Some people suggest spraying the Future on, but in multiple light coats.

Some people suggest using a foam paintbrush to apply the future in a thin, even layer.

Perhaps spraying it on and wiping it off with a clean cloth would yield good results.

In the comments section of my previous post, Chris Michielssen says that while he uses Future on his builds, he only applies it to the decals, and he uses a Q-Tip to apply it in a thin layer.

Whenever you try out a new technique, the point is that sometimes you have to test it out first. Some things seem a lot easier when you read about them than they are in practice. It may take practice to get the hang of it. Even with something as simple as applying a little Future with a cotton swab, now that I've had this experience, I might first try it by applying a spare decal to a painted surface, and then sealing it to the surface with Future, just to see what it looks like (rather than doing it on a finished rocket for the first time). If I like the results, I may adopt the technique.

* * *

Applying Pledge with Future Shine to rockets to improve their surfaces isn't a terribly common practice, but some people do swear by it, so they must be on to something. At the very least, they like the results they get with it.

Others say they would never use floor polish on a rocket.

Floor polish on a model rocket? Not no way, not no how!

People in both camps are doing what works best for them, so nobody is wrong!

As you look for ways to improve your building, sometimes you'll come across techniques which are a tad controversial. Some rocketeers are pretty opinionated about what works and what doesn't, what you should always do or never do. We'll talk about one of those techniques in an upcoming post, and look at both sides of the issue (and try not to raise any hackles or ruffle any feathers).

The point of all this is, when you learn of a new building technique or material, you don't have to take anybody's word for it. Whether one person says "This is easy and amazing!" or another person says "Only an idiot would do this!" you will only know what works for you if you try something out. Just don't try it on anything too expensive or irreplaceable.

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Perfecting Your Rocket Building Skills Can Be Scary

I'm trying an experiment today, and it's got me nervous.

The rocket you see above is the Estes Reflector, a small, BT-50 (0.976 inch diameter) payload-carrying model rocket with a classic "model rocket" look to it. It's... not a big deal. I keep telling myself that.

I bought the Reflector when it was on deep discount, partly because I was considering building this model rocket camera payload project from Instructables.com, and the Reflector happens to be the rocket used in the project. I decided to simply build the rocket as a stock kit model, though I did drill a couple static port holes in the payload compartment so I could use an altimeter.

I'm not in love with the Reflector - I keep telling myself that. It was just a cheap, simple payload rocket I got so I could play around with it.

While writing this, I realized that this was the first rocket I started building after my move from Indiana to Boston last summer. I've been working on this little rocket since July - ten months. Which is far too long to spend on a little model rocket like this. It's not a big deal. I keep telling myself that.

To be clear, I have started and finished other rockets in the last ten months. And a lot of things went wrong on this build, so I really shouldn't care if it turns out alright. I keep telling myself that.

To begin with, the fins warped when I filled the wood grain with Carpenter's Wood Filler (CWF). I got them back to mostly flat, but when sanding off the filler, I had a hard time getting the darned things smooth. Photo not found.

While attaching the fins, I realized that the thumb tab from the motor hook would have prevented the rocket from standing upright on its fins for display, and I didn't like how far out the hook stuck from the back of the rocket. So, halfway through attaching fins, I tried to clip off the thumb tab. But I didn't have the right tool, and ended up bending the tab badly.

This is partly why it took me so long to complete building the Reflector - I kept screwing it up!

Unfortunately, I didn't take many pictures of the Reflector build. Since I was having such a hard time with the rocket, I thought I might never finish it, and didn't really see how I'd use it on the blog, and kept telling myself the rocket didn't matter that much. It was a slightly screwed up rocket that I'd probably never finish, and if I did, it probably wouldn't look great.


Once I'd started and finished a few other rockets, I decided I needed to get the Reflector built. Each problem I'd created, I seemed able to fix more or less. With plenty of automotive filler primer and lots of sanding, I was able to get the fins relatively smooth. They weren't badly warped - just enough so I had been unable to get all the texture of the wood filler sanded off with a sanding block. Using just a piece of 400 grit sandpaper and my fingers, I got them to where I found them acceptable.


Suffice to say that it took me ages to decide how I wanted to fill the wood grain on the balsa wood nose and transition piece. I'd never used a balsa nose before - this was my first! I didn't know if I wanted to use wood filler, creating dust, possibly leaving the pock marks I occasionally don't notice in the surface until the rocket is painted; or sanding sealer - a model rocketry standby that I've only recently started playing with; or something else.

I opted for the CWF. Turned out alright, especially after spraying on the primer and sanding it smooth. Almost as perfect as plastic.

Fast forward to the painting process. The white went on with little trouble, though I did have to sand a few flaws out of the first layers of white and touch them up with a new can.

The black nose cone and payload section got some orange peel on them - a bumpy texture you sometimes get with spray paint, so called because of its resemblance to an orange rind. I considered sanding it smooth and either repainting or trying to polish it, but decided I shouldn't spend so much effort on a rocket which wasn't that amazing and which had already caused me trouble.

Then came the red fin can...

Ugh...

Because of the payload section, the launch lug has a wooden standoff, and if you put the launch lug where the instructions tell you to, there's not much room between the leading edges of the fins and the trailing edge of the launch lug standoff. That means that in order to get a clean, straight line of tape down where you want the red bottom to stop and the white upper part to start is tricky, because there's almost no space.

I usually use clear Scotch tape to mask lines on rockets, because it's cheap and leaves a nice, sharp line.

I used Chris Michielssen's trick of marking a piece of tape with permanent marker and cutting through the black with a hobby knife and ruler to get a sharp, narrow piece of tape.

Getting a piece of tape perfectly straight around a body tube to create a seamless, perfectly straight circumferential line can be tricky. It took me several tries and three pieces of tape to get it right. You're never really sure until you take the tape off.

Once a narrow tape line had been laid down, I had to construct a mask, using blue painter's tape to protect the launch lug standoff from overspray, and paper to keep the rest of the rocket clean.

(I really wish I'd taken pictures here).

When you mask off a base coat to apply a second color, you first want to seal the edges of the tape down with a thin layer of the original color. My fins would be red, but I'd seal the edges with a blast of white.

It turns out that Sharpie markers, the kind I had on hand, while "permanent," are not the best markers for this application.

The white Krylon paint melted the sharpie, and I got a gray ooze down the rocket. Also, I got minor paint runs from doing too heavy a coat of paint.

No matter! I told myself. This rocket was doomed from the start! It. Will. Still. Fly...

I went on to do the red top coat. It was actually going not too badly. A bit bumpy, but not quite orange peely, and pretty much OK. The paint runs were hard to see, so I figured it wouldn't be a big deal.

While the paint was still tacky, I began taking the mask apart, starting with the paper, moving on to the blue painter's tape, then finally, carefully peeling back the Scotch tape at the edge, all while trying not to touch the fresh paint on the fins.

Then the Scotch tape tore.

I could not get all of it off. I have a little bit of fingernail, but I could not lift the tape off. As I became more and more frustrated, I found I was smudging the edge of the paint, getting fingerprints in it, and making a big mess, but I was getting angrier and angrier, and was not about to let the paint dry with bits of tape stuck under the edge of it. (I get really frustrated when I have something stuck to a rocket and can't get it off).

This was the result.

From the side, you can see how little room there is between the fins and the standoff.

I nearly smashed the rocket with my bare hands. HA HA HA!! WHO CARES?? I NEVER LIKED THIS ROCKET TO BEGIN WITH!!!

The problem with being a perfectionist is that you don't have the luxury of not caring. Even if you're building a little rocket that was inexpensive, and maybe not your favorite, is that the process of building is such a pleasure, especially when it's going well. If it goes badly or if you make a mistake, you might tell yourself that you don't like that rocket, and you don't care how it turns out, but it bothers you. Then, if you're able to fix the problem, you are back to feeling good about the project.

One thing I've realized when building this rocket is that, even if it's not my favorite, one that I'd been eyeing for months on some website, dang it, I do care about this rocket. There's no rocket build, large or small, where I decide I don't care.

But sometimes, to develop a craft, you have to take the risk of ruining your work in order to try a new technique or skill, or even to practice techniques you already use. I've only been doing this for going on two years now, so I'm not an old hand yet. I'm still the Rocket N00b.

Also, when you make a mistake, sometimes if you set the rocket down, breathe, and think about it, you can fix things. Even this.

First of all, in my frustration, I'd gotten some pink marks from fresh paint on my fingers all over the rocket. No problem. I grabbed a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser (a tip from Chris Michielssen), and got rid of that.

Those red smudges were sticky the next day. That told me that there was mushed up tape mixed in there. I knew how to take care of that. The dark marks were either primer (I did take a hobby knife to the rocket while trying to remove the tape) or Sharpie. Again, I had a plan.

Mushy adhesive stuff can be removed from dry paint (test before you try on your rocket, but it has worked for me) with a little Ronsonol lighter fluid (as you'll see I found out if you clicked the link above leading to the Quest Quadrunner post). I dabbed a little on a Q-Tip and got most of the gummy red off. It also loosened up the few little bits of tape I discovered once I cleaned off the gummed-up red bits, which I was able to carefully lift off with the tip of a hobby knife.

I finally wet-sanded the edge where the red meets the white with either 600 or 800 grit wet/dry sandpaper.

This was the result.

Not perfect - but much better than what I'd had before. Also, you can see that I got that tape line perfectly straight, so that was encouraging. Smaller rockets are harder to build, because the details are harder to get right.

There is a black decal which goes around the rocket just below the launch lug standoff. You're supposed to leave a bit of white between the black and red, but in this case, I decided the decal would hide the flawed edge. It would be slightly different from the stock look of the rocket, but it would look better this way, and that one little detail would make it my own.

I finally ended up with a rocket which didn't look too bad, considering everything that went wrong. I could have left well enough alone, but I decided to try one more thing. Not that I don't care about this rocket, but I figured this one, with all I messed up and all I was able to fix, would be the ideal candidate to try a treatment I'd read about, before using it on a rocket I really cared about.

The experiment I'm trying is to make the rocket shiner, using Pledge with Future Shine - a floor polish which is said to give a high gloss shine to your rockets, and I hope may seal the decals in place and protect them from damage.

Doing something I've never tried like this is a little scary. The Reflector has gone from being a problem build to a pretty nice looking little rocket, and now that it's done, I don't want to mess it up. But I really don't want to try it for the first time on a more expensive rocket or one I'm really attached to.

How will it turn out? We'll see in the next post. But sometimes you gotta break a few eggs.

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Horrible Error

I've started building my first rocket in months. I decided to take one of the smaller rockets off the build pile - the Estes Reflector.

It's a small, BT-50 (24mm) based rocket with a short payload section. I'm building it with the intention of adding a camera to the payload, following the instructions on this Instructables build, because it's a pretty cool project, and I have yet to successfully launch a camera payload (Janus II had a weird flight and vanished without a trace, and the camera wasn't working anyway. I may post video soon.).

An Estes Reflector with internal, horizontally-
oriented camera, from Instructables.com

Despite having become much more confident in my building skills, sometimes mistakes happen.

Well, first of all, I airfoiled the fins, and one or two came out a little uneven. Not badly, and I hadn't done it in a few months, but the problem was due mainly to rushing the job.

Then, a couple of the fins warped when I brushed on CWF to fill in the wood grain. I pressed them under a heavy book (my trusty Riverside Shakespeare, an invaluable rocket building tool), but there was still a nasty warp on one of the fins. I dunked the bad fins in water, and am re-pressing them. We'll see how that turns out.

The real problem is the motor hook.

Like most Estes low power kits, it comes with a standard motor hook with a little recurved bit on the end as a thumb grip.

From Apogeerockets.com

Some rocketeers religiously remove the thumb grip and smooth off the remaining bit with a file. I actually like the thumb grip - it makes it easier to install the motor. But in some cases, it gets in the way.

A lot of rockets with backward-swept fins will sit nicely on a shelf with no need for a stand or support. Many rockets have fins that don't sweep backwards, so in order to display them on a shelf in a convenient, upright manner, you need to make (or buy, but don't ever buy) a stand of some sort.

The Reflector has swept back fins, but they don't go too far back. On a standard Estes motor hook, the thumb grip is longer than the fins, meaning you cannot simply rest the rocket on its fins. On an old-fashioned, simple motor hook, which is basically just a strip of metal with a bend at the front and a bend at the end, you'd have plenty of space at the bottom - no need for a stand.

Here's a picture from Chris Michielssen's blog with a before and after pic of a modified Estes hook:

The top hook has been modified, and looks more like an old-fashioned
motor hook. This is the kind of hook you get when you order parts online
from vendors such as Jonrocket.

First, I tried cutting the thumb grip off with a pair of wire cutters.

I've had these probably since I was 12. I've used them for trimming guitar strings for 29 years. They didn't work... Didn't even make a dent.

Looking around my Rocket Room...

My Rocket Room in Boston - a couple weeks ago, in progress

...I found a pair of PVC pipe cutters.

This evil parrot-looking thing cuts through 1 inch PVC pipe with little effort.

I figured these would have more power. But instead of cutting the hook, it bent it - backwards. Now there was no more hook to the hook. It wouldn't hold the motor in - but of course, the thumb grip was still attached. AND I dented the end of the airframe, slightly...

I reached for a pair of needle nosed pliers to try to re-bend the hook into shape. What I ended up with looked like this:

It will hold the motor in, and the hook is now definitely short enough to not extend beyond the aft end of the fins, but it looks pretty janky. And the thumb grip now sticks out beyond the diameter of the airframe. This could catch on a two-piece Estes launch rod. Chad had that happen with a bent motor hook on his Estes Crossfire ISX once, and the rod went flying with the rocket! It was terrifying.

Fortunately, I do not use the two-piece rods, and, because of the payload section, the launch lug for this rocket is actually on a stand-off, so it's not likely that the rod will come into contact with the hook.

I could have tossed this whole thing out. I do have plenty of spare parts. It would have been easy for me to cut a 10-inch piece of BT-50 body tube, and make a whole new lower section of this rocket from scratch. But I wanted to go forward, not backward, and as you can see above, I went ahead and started gluing on the fins.

This kind of laziness is not like me - not in rocketry, anyway. I'm usually very meticulous with my rockets (if only I could be that diligent in other areas of life). But it's been so long since I built a rocket, I wanted to move quickly.

If I had it do do over again, I'd have saved the Estes motor hook for another rocket, swapped out a plain hook from Jonrocket, and have saved myself the trouble of all this. Live and learn!

I'm sure I can still make this rocket look pretty good, and when I'm done, the flaw won't be noticeable. Perhaps I'll even find a better cutter to take care of that hook later.

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Decisions To Be Made - Mid Power Rockets and Other Kits

As I mentioned yesterday, I have a build pile of 17 rockets, and I'm not sure where to begin.

Truth is, I have a few rocket kits (8 of them) which require a little thought and planning before I begin. All the Estes Pro Series II and the Quest Big Dog (the whole front row, above) are considered mid power rockets. They all take 29mm rocket motors, which can be much more powerful. I want to transition into high power rocketry, and these bigger mid power ones are the key. The construction is not dissimilar from the low power stuff I've been building and featuring on this blog, but it's sturdier and with thicker materials. So this is where I learn.

But I have to decide, among other things, how I'm going to launch them, and therefore how I might alter the kits. These all come with traditional launch lugs for launching from traditional launch rods. But many mid power rockets and most high power rockets tend to use a launch rail these days - a slotted metal rail six feet long or longer, onto which the rocket slides, guided not by a straw-shaped lug, but by a launch button or conformal rail guide.

Cross-section of a T-slot rail and a rail button.
Photo from the CDI Model Rocketry website.

Launch lug vs. conformal rail guide.
Image from Giant Leap Rocketry

The Quest Big Dog is where I'd like to start, and before I do, I definitely need to make a decision, and figure out how to build it.

The Big Dog has a lanch lug which is sized for a rod no bigger than 3/16 inch, which is a pretty thin rod when you go up to an F or G composite motor. But rail buttons are best attached by screwing them through the airframe into a supporting piece of wood - often right into a centering ring, which in larger rockets are usually made of plywood. But the centering rings for the Big Dog are made of thin black fiber, so that's not an option. I'd need attach a small piece of wood on the inside of the body tube to act as an anchor. The airframe for this rocket is 1.92 inch in diameter, and I can't get my hand inside that, so I don't know how I'd get anything inside there.


Then there's the issue of making a launch rail. Most rocketeers seem to favor something called 10/10 slotted rail from an Indiana-based company called 80/20. They do, however, have thinner, metric rail, and there's a company which makes mini-buttons to fit a rail of that size. Now, I like the idea of smaller buttons and a thinner rail - I probably won't need anything huge for quite some time. But I don't know how common mini-buttons are, or when you'd need to upsize to a larger button and rail. If I only build a couple smaller rockets, is it worth building a mini-button rail, or do I need to go for the bigger ones?

From rail-buttons.com, home of the 25 cent rail button

So, there's that - what size rail do I want to use? Apart from that issue, there's also the question of building a rail launch pad. I've seen a few instructions online for simple pads - this one from the Apogee Components newsletter is pretty simple and cheap, but only points straight upward - you cant tilt it downward to load the rocket or to adjust your launch angle to compensate for the wind. Here's another good, cheap one which looks great - relatively simple and cheap to build, but the instructions are hard to follow for a n00b like me, and I had to Google a few things to figure out what the parts mentioned were. Metal nipple?? What is THAT?? I think it's a plumbing thing...

In the book I've mentioned many times, Make: Rockets: Down-to-Earth Rocket Science by Mike Westerfield, there's a low power launch pad which uses a drill chuck to hold a rod. It's adjustable, and takes whatever size rod you want to put in it. I think I could modify that to take a heavier load. If you look at that picture above of the rail, you see it has a hole down the middle. I think this can take a metal rod, but I have no idea what size - the manufacturer's website doesn't have that information - at least not where I could find it.

I really want to start building those mid power rockets - especially the Estes Leviathan, a huge, fat rocket (by my standards). And especially the Estes Ventris. And the Partizon... OK, I want to build all of them.

But I do have other rockets to build, which I guess I could start in the mean time. First, there's the Cosmic Explorer. I love this rocket - it flies so straight!

I got three more of them at the Estes holiday sales, and want to hack or bash the kit to take a larger, E-sized motor. But I'm procrastinating on that one. It has through-the-wall or TTW fins, and I'll need to trim them a bit to make them fit properly.

At less than 5 bucks a pop, how can you not get three??

I have a couple of simple, Skill Level 1 rockets I probably wouldn't have bothered with if they weren't so cheap - the Estes Monarch and Hornet. Now that I have them, I have to admit, they are cute. These simple rockets might be a good next step, just to keep me working. But I want to build something bigger or more interesting.

Next, the Reflector.

This is a payload-capable rocket, and the one used in this Instructables on adding a camera. I have the rocket and the keychain camera, but now that I have it, I'm nervous about taking the camera apart.

Then there's the MIRV.

This is a very strange rocket, not only because of its shape. It's a two-stager. The first stage flies on one single motor, as you'd expect. But the upper stage splits into three separate rockets each flying on their own motors!

This is why I wish Chad were around more often. He's the only friend who I think would find this truly fascinating. Unfortunately for me, he's now splitting his time between Bloomington and a theater company in the Adirondacks.

Finally, there are a couple of rockets I'm excited about, but intimidated by.

The Dr. Zooch Saturn V.

This "ant-scale" model is pretty complicated. Chris Michielssen does a beautiful job with his, but it requires some real finesse and dexterity to make it look nice. And that's the only reason I'd want to build this one. I'm nearly there, but... Making those "engines" is gonna take some patience and skill.

Finally, there's something special - the Red River Rocketry Blue Shift.

The Blue Shift, from Red River Rocketry - the last of its kind?

What's special about this rocket is that it's no longer in production - and this one right here might very well be the last one of its kind.

I first saw the rocket on Apogee, and thought it looked cool, and put it on my wishlist. But soon I discovered that Red River Rocketry no longer makes kits. I scoured the web to find one, and found two - from eRockets, through Amazon. I bought the second to last one - and it was lost by the postal service. I had to file for a refund through Amazon, and ordered the very last one.

This is just another rocket, but it's nice looking, has a few features I haven't built yet - and it's the very last one! I want to do this rocket justice, and not screw it up, which is why I haven't started on it yet.

I'm tempted to build it and not fly it - tempted, but of course, I will launch it. That's what rockets are for!

Still, somewhere out there, either in the back of a truck, in some other person's apartment, in a landfill (let's hope not), or in some postman's house is one more of these. Let's hope it's OK.

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Estes Is Having A Black Friday Sale - Right Now!

Go to the Estes website right now and buy yourself some rockets. They're having a Black Friday sale which has already started, and you get free shipping on any purchase over $26.

I've already bought 6 rockets - including three of their "Pro Series II" line of rockets. These are their larger, mid power rockets (actually, they will fit motors for the lower end of the high power rocket spectrum, but since I am not certified to fly those yet - and you must be, to fly high power rockets - that's not something I'll get into too much here on the blog just yet). The Pro Series II rockets are huge - compared to the rockets I've built so far. Advanced rocketeers get into building rockets taller than your house, but for a n00b like me, these are impressive things.

You have to shop through the store - not everything is on sale. I really wanted a V-2 semiscale model, for example, but it's still full price. But on the rockets I did buy, I saved about 50-75% per rocket!

Here's what I got:

Pro Series II Leviathan

This big, fat rocket is over 41 inches tall and flies on 29mm motors - that's much bigger than we've discussed on the blog so far. I don't even have all the launch equipment I'll need for this yet, but winter is coming, so I'll have time to build and prep for spring. This and the other Pro Series rockets all cost $45, but I got them for $26.99 a piece!

Pro Series II Ventris

Even taller, Ventris is over 46 inches tall and sports a payload section. Should top 2000 feet with the right motors!

Pro Series II Partizon

At 56 inches, this rocket is nearly as tall as my mom. Should fly 1800 feet. I'm not crazy about this paint job, so I'll need to come up with something else, but I'm super excited about this guy.

Skill Level 1 Reflector

I've been trying to move up in the complexity and power of my rockets, so why would I get this little Skill Level 1 rocket?

For a few really good reasons. First, it's currently marked down from $23.99 to $4.59. For that price, I nearly bought several of them. I've wanted one of these for a while, and this is a price I can't say "no" to.

Also, there's that payload section. The picture makes it look like it's made of cheap gray plastic. It's actually two balsa pieces and a tube, and you can paint it whatever colors you want, and it'll look much better than the picture. But what's awesome is that you can put stuff in there. I found a project on Instructables on putting a camera payload into a rocket that uses this very rocket right here!

Estes Reflector modified to carry the guts of a
keychain video camera - from Instructables.com

This is different from the camera payload I'll be putting into Janus II - that one will be aimed at the ground. The one for Reflector is a sideways-aiming camera - and it uses an HD keychain cam which you take apart and fit to the payload bay.

I might have to get a few more of these...

Skill Level 1 Cosmic Explorer

If you read this blog, you may know I already have one of these. Well, I just ordered two more. Why?

There's the price - marked down to $4.49 from $21.99. This also turned out to be one of my favorite rockets to launch so far, and I kind of want to build it again. But I have plans to upgrade this one.

It's made from a BT-55 tube, which is about 1.33 inches in diameter. The motor mount is for an 18mm motor - your standard A-C. But a BT-50 tube will fit inside this, meaning I can build one of these to fly on a D or E motor (this is called "kit bashing" - you take an existing kit and modify it to suit your needs).

I love the way my Cosmic Explorer flies, but I'd like it to go higher. And an E9 motor apparently burns for three times as long as a C6 motor (the most powerful one my current Cosmic Explorer will take) - and seeing the smoke and flame come out the rocket is my favorite part of a launch. I'll put that build on the blog eventually - I'll need to make some adjustments and be careful about keeping the rocket stable, so that'll be a good blog topic.

Anyway, get thee to EstesRockets.com and buy thee rockets! Even if you're new to this, look around for stuff you might like to build and fly. I'm so stoked about all the rockets I got for much less money than I'd normally have spent! Whether you're a n00b or an experienced rocket builder, there's stuff there you'll like.