Sanding Block Pro Tip

A while back, I showed a way to remove self-adhesive sandpaper from an aluminum sanding block, like the Great Planes Easy-Touch Hand Sander*, seen above.

Self-adhesive sandpaper, such as the stuff I buy from Klingspoor, has such a powerful adhesive on it that you can't simply peel it back off the aluminum.

My solution was to hold the sander under a stream of warm water and slowly but firmly peel the sandpaper off.

Any remaining adhesive is cleaned off with a cotton swab and an adhesive solvent such as lighter fluid.

While this certainly works, someone suggested to me a much easier, faster way, and it doesn't require running water.

All you need is cheap masking tape.

The Great Planes hand sander is just a hair over 2 inches wide. I got the cheapest masking tape I could find over 2 inches - a 3-inch wide roll for about $5. (That's a Boston hardware store price. In most parts of the U.S. you should be able to find it cheaper.)

Just adhere a strip of the tape directly to your sanding block.

Trim the tape down to the edges of the sander.

Now you can attach the self-adhesive sandpaper as you would normally, and trim that down as well.

Despite being a lot less sticky than the sandpaper itself, the masking tape will hold up to pretty heavy use. Once you're ready to change paper, you can just peel it off the sanding block with a fingernail.

Now you can quickly and cleanly change paper without any running water, and with no need to use a solvent to clean up any remaining adhesive residue.

You should use one piece of tape wide enough to cover the whole sander. If you try to put two narrower pieces side by side, the ridge will show through on the sandpaper side, and your sanding surface won't be perfectly flat.

Even if you don't own a Great Planes Hand Sander, the masking tape method should work with even a simple wood block sander. Whereas the sandpaper's adhesive would take the surface off a wood block, cheap masking tape should peel off easily. Having the sandpaper adhered flatly against the sanding surface is much better and flatter than simply wrapping a piece of sandpaper around a wooden block, as it gives you more control.

*As of this writing, it's difficult to find a Great Planes hand sander. Great Planes was owned by Hobbico, and as a result, was part of the whole Hobbico bankruptcy. We in model rocketry got really lucky that Estes was purchased by Estes Industries, LLC, run by people who actually really care about the hobby itself. Hobbico's other holdings have apparently been purchased by Hobbico rival Horizon, and so far, the future of all its holdings is uncertain. The Easy Touch Hand Sander has been on backorder for some time. I hope it returns to market some time soon. It's such a simple, elegant tool - my favorite in the tool box. I own three! I'll try to keep track of when the Great Planes sanders come back and post about it here. I recommend you get one. They're inexpensive and a great little tool.

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Using the Kuhn Tube Cutter

The Kuhn tube cutter is a simple tool designed by model rocketeer Howard Kuhn for cleanly cutting paper tubes to a specific length.

I have two of these - a large one I built myself, and a small one from North Coast Rocketry.

I love this tool. I could happily cut tubes all day with this. Here's a video showing how easy it is to cut with this thing.

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Rocket Camp - Construction: Building Model Rockets With Young Beginners (Part 1: Tools and Materials)

Click here for the beginning of this series.

Building model rockets with a group of young kids who have no experience doing it is one of the more challenging aspects of teaching rocketry. Building a simple Skill Level 1 rocket isn't hard, but there are steps which must be followed in order. There are small parts which must not be lost, or the rocket won't work properly. Time must be allotted for glue to dry before moving from one step to another, and some kids get impatient and try to rush. There are fragile parts which may break if there is horseplay. And kids without a lot of craft-building experience tend to use far too much glue.

Building a model rocket isn't hard, but kids building one for the first time require a little guidance.

Although this blog is largely aimed at people just getting into rocketry, a lot of my readers are experienced rocketeers. Some people reading this will have a lot of experience both building rockets and teaching rocketry to kids. More may have lots of experience building and flying, but haven't actually taught rocketry at a school or camp or scout troop before. Some readers may have no experience at all building rockets, but wish to incorporate model rocketry into a school curriculum, and need some guidance. With the next few posts, I hope to address readers of all levels.

* * *

In earlier posts in this series, I have mentioned the fact that, due to the amount of time I had with my rocket camp kids, I didn't always go by the advice of others in online rocketry forums to "keep it simple." I managed to teach some advanced stuff to these kids.

But when it comes to building rockets with young newbies you definitely do want to keep it simple! Many experienced rocketeers will do their own thing, altering the rocket from the strictures of the instructions. They may add a payload section which doesn't come with the kit, so the rocket can be flown with an altimeter. They may do a "kit bash," using the parts of one kit to make a different rocket from the one pictured on the package. They may clip the thumb tab off the end of a motor hook/engine hook, either because it looks better, or because the hook is too long and the rocket won't stand on its fins with a thumb tab. Or, they may leave out the hook and the thrust ring/engine block so that a wide variety of motors may be used. I myself will often at least use a larger sized motor mount, so I can fly a C motor rocket on a D or E motor if I want to. They might even decide not to use a launch lug, but instead replace it with micro rail buttons, so the rocket can be flown off a more sturdy launch rail, such as the MakerBeam.

When building with kids for the first time, however, it's best to "build stock." In other words, stick to the instructions and don't change too many things. This may seem obvious to most people, but I'd bet a lot of rocketeers get to a point where they don't look too closely at the instructions for a basic rocket build, because they know how a basic build goes, and they tend to enhance or upgrade most of their low power model rockets.

A lot of us will take certain steps to hide the spiral groove in the paper body tube and fill in the rough wood grain on balsa fins - with materials like Elmer's Carpenter's Wood Filler or sanding sealer, or by adding paper skins to the fins to strengthen them and make them smooth.

This can certainly make a rocket look much nicer, and may help the rocket fly much higher, since a smooth rocket has less aerodynamic drag than a rough rocket. But these steps can be messy. Carpenter's Wood Filler (CWF) creates a lot of dust when sanded smooth. Sanding sealer puts out strong fumes and must be used in a well-ventilated area. Papering fins is tricky to a beginner with underdeveloped manual dexterity. And all of these techniques are at least somewhat time-consuming. A lot of kids will get bored, and ask "Do we have to do this?" Bored kids may act up and disrupt the class, or, at the very least, decide that rocketry isn't for them, and give it up once the camp or class is over.

A beginner's rocket doesn't have to be beautiful. It must be functional and safe. For most classroom applications, you should skip the extra steps of filling in wood grain and spiral grooves, and just build the rocket as depicted in the instructions.

An exception to this would be if you are working with older students, in, as I mentioned in the previous post, an art class or as a project in a shop class, where the point is to make something that looks nice. Or, if you have kids who are really interested in the finer points of craftsmanship and model building. In that case, you could surely consider showing them some tips for making finer-looking rockets.

* * *

As I mentioned in the post about kit selection, you will hopefully have built one of the kits you'll be using before class begins. If you are totally unfamiliar with model rocket building - perhaps you are a teacher who wants to incorporate rocketry into your curriculum, but not an obsessive rocket hobbyist like the rest of us - this is especially important. Not only will you go into the class knowing how the rocket is to be constructed from start to finish, but you'll know what tools and materials you'll need for each step. Let's start there.

Tools

Here are the basics you will most likely need for any rocket kit.

Hobby knives with #11 blades

These are often called "X-Acto" knives, but X-Acto is just a brand name. It's like the Kleenex of the hobby knife world. With a Skill Level 1 kit, or even an easy-to-assemble "E2X" kit, there is at least some bit of cutting you'll have to do. This might be nothing more than cutting a tiny slit into the motor tube to install a motor retention hook, or "engine hook."

Do you give each kid a hobby knife and let them do their own cutting? This is a tricky judgment call, and I can't really answer that question. Hobby knives are razor sharp, and fragile. Not only can they slice very easily, but if you apply too much pressure to them when cutting, the tip can break off - that can end up flying back into an eye.

Last year, we had a bunch of hobby knives and smaller groups, and the kids seemed pretty competent. Kids of this age group have been building rockets for decades, and the camp had used hobby knives in the past, so while I let kids make their own cuts, I gave them some basic rules on knife safety and made it clear that this is not a toy. I told them I would do the cutting for them if they wanted me to, and I kept a sharp eye on all the kids while they were doing it. It made me very nervous, but everything went well, and once the cutting was done, I made sure to collect all the knives.

Between last year and this year, at least one box of the camp's supplies had been lost somewhere. We had no hobby knives, so I bought one. Only a single cut was necessary per rocket. And I had a lot more kids this year. The larger group dynamic meant that the kids were rowdier and didn't listen as well. Rather than pass around the knife, I erred on the side of caution, and went around and made the cut myself. When in doubt, you do the cutting.

Rulers

Most model rocketeers prefer a metal ruler with a cork back. A metal straightedge is necessary when used as a guide for cutting things like fins with a hobby knife, and the cork prevents the ruler from slipping.

But most beginner's kits come with fins which are already cut out. You merely need to remove them from the balsa sheet in which they come. There are some small tabs holding the fins in place, but those can either be cut without using a ruler, or the fins may simply be snapped out (there may be some minor fin damage, but if you're careful, it should be fine).

Still, you do need to make a few measurements, so a handful of plastic or wooden rulers will do fine, if that's what's available to you.

Pencils

The kids will have to make some marks on the body of the rockets. Always use pencils - never pens or markers. Pencil marks are erasable if kids make mistakes (they will), and pen or marker ink can bleed through a paint job.

Sandpaper

Even if you're not trying to build beautiful models with a fine finish, some sanding will probably be necessary. Get a few sheets of sandpaper and cut them into small squares to pass around. Don't get anything too coarse - an inexperienced kid can really sand things out of shape with 150 grit sandpaper! Anything between 220 grit and 400 grit will serve you just fine. Sanding blocks cut from 1X4 wood are nice to have, but probably not necessary for a rocket camp build. I requested sanding blocks for my camp, but they never materialized. In the end, it wouldn't have made a difference to how the rockets turned out.

Aluminum angle

This is an optional tool, but I highly recommend it. When building rockets, with a few exceptions, kids will have to mark straight lines all the way up the body tubes to mark where fins and launch lugs go. It's hard to draw a straight vertical line on a curved object like that.

For decades, model rocketeers have used either the lip of a drawer or a door jamb to do this task, and it works just fine.

A door jamb is an acceptable way to mark
lines up a body tube - in a jam.

But you probably won't have a dresser drawer in your classroom, and a lot of schools have metal door jambs with round corners. Wooden door jambs often have nicks in them, so it's hard to get a good line. Plus, the school or camp where you're working may not want pencil marks all over their doors.

Many rocket builders today use aluminum angle, available at hardware stores in 3-foot lengths, to accomplish this task.

Simply place the angle open end down on the body tube, and it forms a perfect straightedge all the way up the tube.

Aluminum angle makes the perfect straightedge for drawing lines straight up the body tube.

Aluminum angle is pretty cheap. You can get one or two 3-foot lengths, cut them into shorter pieces with a hacksaw, sand off any rough edges with coarse sandpaper, and then pass them around the class when it's time to mark up the tubes. 1/2-inch wide aluminum angle, as seen in the above photos, is the perfect size for small, classroom rocket building projects.

Craft Dowels or Craft Sticks

This is another optional tool, but you might find it nice to have on hand. Kids will have to apply glue to the insides of the rocket body tubes. Usually, using fingers will work, but kids with small hands might find it difficult to get glue into the right place. A dab of glue on a dowel or craft "Popsicle" stick will do the trick. I applying glue inside a round tube easier with a round dowel than with a flat craft stick, but either will work.

Cardboard Boxes

This is one that's so simple, I can't believe I didn't think of it before I started.

Rocket kits have a lot of small parts, and some of them tend to get lost in a classroom full of kids. There's always at least one kid who loses a nose cone and several who lose launch lugs. Launch lugs are tiny, and until launch day, kids don't see how important it is not to lose them. Unless you want to go to the trouble of building a launch tower - which you probably don't - you need the launch lugs.

A launch tower is used to launch rockets with no launch lugs. They're mainly used in competition
rocketry, where you want to reduce aerodynamic drag as much as possible. Image from nar.org.

The first couple of times I did the camp, when the day was finished, I had each rocketeer make a little pile of his or her parts on the tables at the side of the classroom. "Put your stuff where you know you'll find it tomorrow," I said. This really didn't work. It finally dawned on me that I needed some kind of storage for half-built rockets.

The simple solution is to have a shoe box for each kid to put his or her stuff in at the end of each day. As seen in the photo above, by cutting a V-shaped notch in opposite ends of each box, you have also made the storage box double as a rocket cradle, perfect for holding the rocket horizontal while allowing glue to dry on fin fillets or while doing other work on the rocket.

Scissors

You're probably going to need scissors for a lot of things, especially cutting out tube marking guides (these are used to mark where the fins go on the rocket, and are included in the instruction sheets in just about every rocket kit) and probably for cutting out shock cord mounts (especially if you use Estes rockets). That's not to mention the dozens of other used you'll find for scissors in the classroom. 

Materials

Adhesives

For most rocket-building tasks, you will need either white glue or yellow glue, more commonly known as wood glue or carpenter's glue.

Wood glue, sometimes called "yellow glue," and is technically called aliphatic resin, on the left;
white glue, or polyvinyl acetate, on the right. Either one will work well for model rocketry.

Either will work well for kids building rockets. Don't ask "which one is better?" because that opens a whole can of worms. "What's the best glue?" is a question which sparks heated debate in online rocketry forums. Either one should be plenty strong for a Skill Level 1 model rocket.

I went with wood glue, because I know the bond it creates is stronger than both the paper body tube and the balsa fins we'd be gluing together, and it's what I use at home. You can also find multi-packs of small bottles of white glue in a lot of craft stores.

What you don't want to use, however is "school glue," or anything labeled as "washable." White glue and wood glue can be cleaned up with water if they're not totally dry, but washable glues can be removed with water even when dry. The bond isn't as strong, and you don't want your rockets falling apart if it starts to rain on launch day!

Plastic Cement

 

Some model rockets - including the Apogee Avion, which I built with my kids this year - require some use of plastic cement, either to assemble a two-part nose cone, or to attach plastic parts to the paper body tube. A common plastic cement is Testor's, and it comes in a red tube. Beware - this stuff is toxic. There is a "non-toxic" variety, but it's not as strong. In my camp, I assembled all the nose cones myself before class. I didn't want any kids getting plastic cement on their fingers or in their mouths.

Stay Away from CA!

Thin and thick varieties of cyanoacrylate - commonly called CA - found in hobby shops and online

Inevitably, you'll have some kids asking "Why can't we just use Superglue?" Adhesives marketed as Superglue or Krazy Glue are in fact cyanoacrylate, which hobbyists abbreviate CA. It's sold at hobby stores in thin, medium and thick viscosities for model builders, and in medium thick or gel form, as found in hardware stores, for household use. It does bond very quickly, but there are some good reasons to steer clear of CA.

First, CA is brittle, and it gets even more brittle with age. A hard landing can easily knock a fin off a rocket if it's glued on with CA.

But, more importantly, CA is too dangerous to use with kids. CA is a monomer with small molecules capable of attaching themselves to each other. When it cures, it polymerizes - the molecules bond firmly together to form long chains. CA's bonding power is activated by moisture, such as the moisture in the air. But the moisture of human skin makes CA bond instantly. You can quite literally glue your fingers together, or glue them to a rocket part!

Not to mention, when CA cures, it has what's known as an ectothermic reaction, meaning it generates heat. The faster CA cures, the hotter it gets. When you get CA on your skin, it can get hot enough to cause a bad burn, especially in large quantities.

When my kids asked me why we couldn't use Superglue, I was prepared. I showed them this picture.

This happened when I accidentally got thin CA on myself and glued my finger to the bottle. Luckily, I had some CA de-bonder on hand, and was able to work my finger loose - but I did get a bad burn.

Un-Cure, a CA de-bonder, available in hobby shops and online

Don't mess with CA when building with young kids. Instead, teach them to be a little patient and wait for the wood glue or white glue to dry.

There is a possible exception to this, however, if: a) you are building with older kids, and b) you either need to build quickly or you are doing an altitude competition and need the rockets to be ultra-light, and c) you don't mind if the rockets only last a few flights, then you might consider using CA for construction.

If you do, make sure you use protection. Builders should wear nitrile exam gloves. If CA gets onto the gloves, they will stick, but that's better than getting CA on the fingers. Don't use the super-thin CA - it goes everywhere, and is not good for attaching fins to rockets. It also cures lightning-fast, meaning if you do get it on your skin, it can get very hot. Furthermore, thin CA can splash back, and if it gets in someone's eye you will have a medical emergency on your hands. Use a medium or thick CA, or perhaps a gel Superglue. Since medium and thick CAs cure more slowly, you might want to have a CA accelerator - often called "kicker" - on hand. It cures the CA instantly. Once CA is cured, it's safe to touch.

Two brands of CA accelerator, found in hobby shops and online

Make sure you have some CA de-bonder or acetone on hand in case someone glues their fingers together. And as you would with kids using hobby knives, keep a close eye on everyone to make sure someone isn't absentmindedly making a dangerous mistake.

Tape

You may be painting the rockets with your kids, or you may not. Either way, you'll probably find you need some tape. Regular Scotch tape will work well. We got some really cheap blue painter's tape. It's not great - I would never use it for my own builds. But for rocket camp, it's fine.

Waxed Paper

Kids can be messy, especially when working with glue for the first time. Lay a sheet of waxed paper at each kid's work space, and it will help prevent the need for major cleanup at the end of class - which will probably fall to you.

Alternately, dollar store cutting mats, which often come in 3-packs, and which are meant for the kitchen, are good work station tools. If you do have to have the kids do any cutting with a hobby knife, they will also protect the tables or desks from damage. 
 

Paper Towels

You will have glue everywhere, and probably some sanding dust as well. There will be a lot of kids with a lot of gluey fingers. Make sure you have something to clean up with. A damp sponge might also be a good idea.

Paint

We'll actually discuss paint in a later post. Whether you use spray paint or opt for brushes - or even markers or colored tape - will depend on your setup.

* * * 

In the next Rocket Camp post, we'll actually discuss construction of the rockets themselves.

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A Rocketeer's Toolbox for the Absolute Beginner

You have a basic Skill Level 1 rocket kit or two, and want to get started in rocketry.

This is going to be a lot of fun!

But to build rockets, you're going to need a few tools. Where to start? Do you need to go nuts at the hobby shop and hardware store just to build your first rockets?

Of course not. Starting out in rocketry requires relatively little, and you can add more tools as you decide you need them.

So here are some of the tools you'll need. There are the basics, which you'll need for just about any rocket, then a few things that are nice to have. There's probably no limit to the number and assortment of tools which have been applied to rocketry, but you can acquire things as you go, if you get into more advanced building.

Actually, you could probably classify the items in this post into two categories: tools, which you'll use over and over again, and materials, consumable items which you'll use on each rocket, and which you will have to replace.

Some tools you have to buy, but in rocketry, often you see people using improvised tools. Rocket building encourages and rewards creative problem solving!

Rocketry encourages and rewards creative problem solving. Here is a simple but ingenious solution to the problem
of getting rocket fins on straight, on an Estes Ventris mid power rocket, by rocketeer Brian T. La Rose

As you'll see, the tools and materials for the rocketry beginner are very affordable, even if you're on a tight budget.

* * *

The Basics - Tools

 Here are the indispensible tools and materials you'll need just to begin.

A pencil

You'll use this to make marks on the body of the rocket to help you place the fins on accurately, and to mark off measurements. If you want to start using some more advanced techniques, like, say, sanding rocket fins into a "teardrop" or airfoil shape, you'll use the pencil to make marks on the fins.

Always use a pencil. Never use a pen or marker to make these kinds of marks on a rocket, because the ink will bleed through the paint.

A metal ruler

You can measure things with a wooden or plastic ruler, but often you use the ruler to guide cuts that you make with a hobby knife. The metal ruler won't get marred by the knife.

You should get a ruler with a cork backing. This will help keep the ruler from slipping.

I started with a six-inch ruler, seen in the photo above, but quickly realized I needed a longer one, so I bought the 12-inch ruler. I should have just gotten an 18-inch ruler to start with. Get at least a 12-inch ruler if you can.

A hobby knife

You might know this as an "X-Acto" knife. X-Acto is the Kleenex of hobby knives, in that it's so ubiquitous people often refer to the tool by the brand name. But you can find cheaper ones.

The hobby knife has a chuck into which you can insert a number of disposable blades. The blade you'll use most often is the #11 blade.

I have several hobby knives. One interesting one is from Fiskars.

This is a kind of precision hobby knife, which uses the same blades as a standard hobby knife. The difference is in how you hold it. Instead of holding it like a pencil, you put your index finger through the loop, giving you more control over the knife.

While I like the design of this hobby knife, I have to admit I haven't used it all that much.

Another option for cutting, recommended by Chris Michielssen of the Model Rocket Building blog, is the kind of box cutter with breakable blades. When the blade gets dull, you break off a section and you have a new blade right there. They're pretty economical, and work well for all but the fiddliest, precision cutting.

A cutting mat

My cutting mat is the background to a lot of the pictures on this blog. What many rocketeers use is what's known as a self-healing cutting mat. You can find them at craft stores, hobby stores and fabric stores.

Olfa is a popular, prominent brand, but mine is from Fiskars. They're pretty much the same, except for the color - and the price. A self-healing mat can cost $20-$40. But I got mine for about $14 from Michael's Crafts with a 40% off coupon.

I started out just using newspaper as a cutting mat. If you use a thick pile of newspaper, say, a whole Sunday New York Times, that will work. Just be careful not to cut through it into the table. A cutting mat is a better option.

If you're on a budget - or in a hurry - check out the dollar store. When I was about to teach a model rocketry camp this summer, I got a 3-pack of flexible cutting boards for a dollar.

They may not look as fancy or last as long, but they're cheap, and they should do the trick.

A sanding block

You don't have to buy a sanding block. You can simply make one. A short length of 2X4 wood, or anything that's perfectly flat, rectangular, and be easily held in the hand will work. You just wrap a length of sandpaper around it, and you're ready to sand.

Or, you can get a sanding block from a hardware store.

However, I highly recommend the Great Planes hand sander, seen above. Since I first bought one after learning about it from Chris Michielssen's blog, it has become my absolute favorite tool to use.

It's so simple, comfortable to use, lightweight, and perfectly flat. You simply use spray adhesive to attach any grit of sandpaper to its surface, or you can buy sandpaper with an adhesive backing already applied.

A comfortable handle

The sanding surface

At under $8 on Amazon, I love this tool so much, I've ordered a second one. That way, I can have two different grits of sandpaper ready to go without having to change sheets each time I need a coarser or finer grit.

Dowel rods or craft sticks

I almost didn't include this in the Indispensable Tools for a Beginner section, but they're so useful and cheap, I think you need to have them.

Dowel rods and craft sticks are useful for many applications in rocket building. But the thing that makes them indispensable, even for the beginning rocketeer, is that they're necessary for getting glue into hard to reach locations, such as up inside a rocket body tube or motor tube. For doing that, I prefer skinny dowel rods, about 1/4 or 1/8 inch in diameter.

But dowel rods are useful for so many things. Here's what I'd call "improvised tools," consisting of dowel rods with expended rocket motor casings attached to the ends.

These are painting wands. You insert the expended motor casings into the rocket just as you would a rocket motor. Then you can hold the wand and spray paint the rocket without touching it - very important if you want to get a nice finish on the rocket, and minimize the amount of paint you get on your hands!

Scissors

 

I'm pretty sure you know what scissors are for...

For an Absolute Beginner Rocket N00b toolbox, that's all you need. There are a lot more things you'll probably want, but that will get the rocket built.

That is, as long as you have...

The Basics - Materials

These are things you'll use on each rocket, but they're not reusable. You will run out and need to replace them.

Things like...

Glue

There are two main types of glue you might use in basic rocket building, and they're frequently referred to as yellow glue and white glue. Yellow glue, which is technically known as aliphatic resin, is more commonly called wood glue or carpenter's glue. You can see my particular brand on the left. White glue, also known as polyvinyl acetate, or PVA, is so called because it's white in color. Either of these works well. I happen to prefer wood glue, but that's just a personal choice.

What you absolutely do not want to use to build rockets is "school glue" or anything washable. Washable glues are not strong enough, and a little moisture can ruin your rocket.

Some beginner's-level rockets require you to glue plastic parts together, or to glue plastic to a paper body tube. In that case, you may need some plastic cement.

This stuff actually melts the plastic so that it bonds with other parts more easily. It's nasty stuff, but sometimes necessary.

Sandpaper

To get started, you'll probably only need two grits of sandpaper. The higher the number, the finer the grit, and the smoother you can sand something. But, of course, sometimes you need a coarse grit of sandpaper if you're trying to remove material and sand something down, rather than just make the surface smooth.

For a beginner, 220 grit and 400 grit will be what you need. You can experiment with coarser and finer grits of sandpaper - say, 100 grit for a tough job that requires sanding something off, or 600 or 800 grit for getting a really smooth surface. But for most applications, these two will work great.

Paint and primer

Technically, these are optional. You can fly your rocket without painting it. But most people choose to pain their rockets, and you probably do too.

You have a lot of options here. The main thing is to make sure your primer is sandable. You can either go with a primer called "sandable primer," or with something called "filler primer," which is not only sandable, but also helps fill in imperfections in the rocket's surface.

Primer is basically "the paint you paint before you paint." It helps the actual paint to adhere to the surface, and using a sandable primer means you can get a really smooth surface for the paint to adhere to. This will help you get a smoother, nicer-looking (and better-performing) rocket.

There are a lot of different spray paints you could go with, but a couple of tips for the beginner: stick with the same brand and line of paint for each color you use (Rust-Oleum 2X enamel paint, for example); start with the lighter color first, and do the darker colors over that; don't mix kinds of paint, e.g. lacquer and enamel.

That's it. That's your beginning rocketry tool box.

* * *

There are a ton of other tools and materials you might use as you get more into rocketry. For the beginner, the following are a few things it's nice to have, but aren't strictly necessary.

Aluminum angle, or "angle iron"

This is one of those improvised tools used by a lot of rocketeers. It's a piece of aluminum that has two sides at a 90 degree angle. You find it in 3 foot long sections in the hardware store, often near the steel rods (which you can use to build launch pads!). I have no idea what they're really supposed to be used for - making doors, maybe? Or windows? But they're used in rocketry a lot.

With a piece of aluminum angle, you can draw a line straight up the side of a body tube, because the angle will sit perfectly on the tube.

I marked inch lines on this piece of aluminum angle,
so that it could double as a rough kind of ruler.

Traditionally, rocketeers used a door jamb or the edge of a drawer to draw straight lines on a rocket airframe, but this technique has drawbacks.

Those drawbacks include marking up the door frames of your house with pencil, and getting lines on your rocket which are not perfectly straight, due to imperfections in the door frame or drawer edge.

A small, 1/2 inch aluminum angle may serve all your needs. You can get a larger one when you build larger diameter rockets, but a small one may serve as well. They're pretty inexpensive.

Utility knife

For heavier-duty cuts.

Razor saw

Much like a hobby knife, this is a handle with a chuck on the end. The blades are replaceable. It's a very thin saw for cutting things like wood or plastic.

I held off getting one of these for a while, but I find it very useful. There are several basic rockets which might be easier to build if you have one of these. For example, if you get the Estes Tandem-X launch kit, which has a launch pad, launch controller, and two rockets, one of the rockets you'll have is the Estes Crossfire ISX - a great little high-flying rocket.

When you build it, you will have to cut the nose cone into a few pieces - the nose cone itself, plus a "nozzle" for the aft end of the rocket. The kit instructions suggest using a hobby knife for this.

You could use a hobby knife or utility knife, but it would take quite a long time. You might be tempted to press really hard, and risk cutting yourself, or damaging the parts, or breaking the hobby knife blade. You could also use a utility knife, which would take a bit less time, but still require some work. A razor saw makes short work of cutting plastic parts like those.

I used a hacksaw when I built my Crossfire ISX. Overkill, perhaps, but I didn't have the patience to use a hobby knife safely, and didn't have a razor saw in my toolbox yet.

This required lots of sanding, not to mention borrowing a hacksaw, as I didn't have one of those either.

Now that I have a razor saw, I use it all the time. I've even used it to build other tools.

* * *

There are lots of other tools, materials, and techniques you'll adopt as you advance in rocketry. Some of these will be to make your rockets look or fly better, and some of them will be because you'll use sturdier materials as you build bigger, more powerful rockets. But if you're just starting out, this tool box will serve you well, and you'll use all these tools for many rocket builds to come.

In an upcoming post, we'll see some more tools and materials you may want to consider, to make rocket building easier, and to make your rockets look even better.

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