Guest no6 Posted February 14, 2011 Posted February 14, 2011 In the past I've made little fuse rockets with two or three 1 1/2" pieces of flying fish fuse attached to tiny bottle rocket sticks. They're cute. On Saturday we made a more serious version. Took 7 pieces of 3" pre-cut visco (the perfectly straight stuff), a 6" long piece of economy Chinese visco (as the leader), bound together with thin safety wire in two places (near the bulkhead and about halfway down), rolled a tinfoil tube around it and taped the motor to a 2 oz rocket stick cannibalized from a spent consumer rocket. Wow. Was very surprised by the result. This little guy took off very quickly and got up to about 150'. It flew remarkably straight. Tell us about your fuse rockets. How big can they get? I'm gonna put a firecracker payload on the next one.
Guest no6 Posted February 15, 2011 Posted February 15, 2011 No love for the fuse rocket? It cost less than 10 cents and took 2 minutes to make... Well, I'll keep messing with this until I can lift a header of some significance. A salute would be simple enough. I'll show you. I'll show you all! Ha ha.
dagabu Posted February 15, 2011 Posted February 15, 2011 (edited) Naw, we all like fuse rockets but for most of us, we have done that novelty and have moved up to larger rockets. I would like to see some video though. This rocket is a 1" ID Hybrid nozzleless lifting a 4" canister of Ralph's glitter #1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lrYAjp-w6w Edited February 15, 2011 by dagabu
anapogeetoofar Posted February 15, 2011 Posted February 15, 2011 Well, while I don't think you could call it a "fuse rocket", I did make some mean little buggers with some ghetto thermalite I had made with a high metals epoxy propellant (don't remember if it was perchlorate or nitrate based). Wrap a few sticks around a visco fuse, then wrap the whole deal with heavy duty aluminum tape, use a pen to form the nozzle and divergent section, worked great...usually. If you wrap that aluminum tape tight enough you would be amazed how much pressure it can take! I gotta find the formula for that thermalite again, that stuff could ignite damn near anything! It was a pain to cut though, always broke apart at the ends. If I ever find it I'll try another "fuse" rocket with it, maybe take a video. I wonder if I could coat the string with AP propellant instead, hmmm. So many ideas, so little airspace!
WonderBoy Posted February 16, 2011 Posted February 16, 2011 Dag, Was that straight BP on your H-U spindle, or was it diluted with anything? It seemed like a pretty slow take off. I like those nice slow flights every once in a while, looked good. Sorry no6, I'm in the same boat as D. I got some jollies with them back when I first started, but have moved on. I would masking tape 7 pieces together then roll a tight tube over them with a couple turns of kraft and crimp a nozzle, then fill the top with hot melt. I doubt the nozzle was necessary, but oh well. They were fun little buggers, but I never tried lifting anything.
dagabu Posted February 16, 2011 Posted February 16, 2011 Close your eyes and listen to the sound. Tell me what you thought after you do that...
WonderBoy Posted February 16, 2011 Posted February 16, 2011 Mmmmmm it is nice. One of the reasons I like a nice slow take off every once in a while, it adds to the beauty.This is one of my favorites to listen too, for a couple of reasons. Although it's not as nice and subtle as yours.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3OuRLPjqD8
NightHawkInLight Posted February 16, 2011 Posted February 16, 2011 This rocket gave me my favorite sound so far, epoxy/Mg/nitrate based: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRnb0vn15_E
dagabu Posted February 16, 2011 Posted February 16, 2011 This rocket gave me my favorite sound so far, epoxy/Mg/nitrate based: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRnb0vn15_E Beautiful!! Bravo! I will be listening to that time and again.
Guest no6 Posted February 16, 2011 Posted February 16, 2011 Nice stuff all. The fuse rockets are just silly fun. Not meant to be taken too seriously. Being the technical dunce that I am, I began shooting video before formatting my memory card. So all this foolishness is on my camera but I cannot seem to export it to my computer. Will I have to buy a new memory card or can I wipe it somehow and start fresh?
NightHawkInLight Posted February 16, 2011 Posted February 16, 2011 Nice stuff all. The fuse rockets are just silly fun. Not meant to be taken too seriously. Being the technical dunce that I am, I began shooting video before formatting my memory card. So all this foolishness is on my camera but I cannot seem to export it to my computer. Will I have to buy a new memory card or can I wipe it somehow and start fresh?If you format it will just erase everything already on the card, but it won't be damaged in any way.
Guest no6 Posted February 16, 2011 Posted February 16, 2011 Thanks NHIL. And I just watched your most recent video. I like where you are going with this. It's very helpful to folks like me. In the meantime I've been learning how to make canister shells for my headers. No hurry, I'll get there in due time.
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