Aquarius Posted May 4, 2008 Share Posted May 4, 2008 I wouldn't overdestimate the "weather-effect", or the problem with shrinkage. I have made a lot of drivers, and some were bad, some good and a lot of them catos... Things really didn't zero in until I started being a bit more careful in ramming and drying out the motors, using the same nozzle mix, same incremets etc.. I use Red Gum as a binder and acetone as a solvent and with care taken when ramming (haven't got a press yet), they now fly just as good, made last week or last year. So my best advice: Be patient and be rewarded. But I also recognize the effect on weather, if you push the limit of your motors all the time. If you don't, your rockets will still fly, maybe have a percentage or two less thrust, but they fly! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fizeau Posted May 5, 2008 Share Posted May 5, 2008 Girandola from last night I liked it very much. Some questions: how big was it? How do you launch your girandolas? Do you use a center line? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ActionTekJackson Posted May 5, 2008 Share Posted May 5, 2008 Nice work Jack! Girandola from last night Thanks, I really like the girandola here, very nice work... I'm jealous... :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cplmac Posted May 12, 2008 Share Posted May 12, 2008 Pre-Fire vid of the girandola Girandola Except for the headers failing this girandola worked well. I'm looking forward to building the next one, I was able to recover the frame un-damaged. 3" ID Ti Whistle to Report This rocket did not have the sound I was hoping for and the Ti Salute was visually lacking but overall a successful test of a new fuel and tooling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mumbles Posted May 12, 2008 Share Posted May 12, 2008 Very appropriate music to the preflight girandola video. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lnstantkarma Posted May 14, 2008 Share Posted May 14, 2008 That's so weird your talking about girandolas now, I've been researching them for a long time and I'm making tourbillions now and I'll hopefully work my way up to their big brother. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brakkie Posted May 14, 2008 Share Posted May 14, 2008 Lift: 30 grams of H3 pulveroneStars: Lancaster Chlorate Silver Pumped, 160 gramsBagmine Construction This mine was LOUD! You can hear the echo bouncing back and it's too bad that the movie was turned off because you could hear it going on for much longer! It was the first thing shot out of Miech's 3" mortar and both of us were running up to see if it survived, luckily it did! I was very pleased about this mine, it was my first 3" mine and although the effect was more like a huge silvershower it was a nice effect overall. I'll try this again and take 2 identical mines except, 1 will have a diafragm and 1 won't. See what the diffirence will be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cplmac Posted May 20, 2008 Share Posted May 20, 2008 3" ground break crossette with twinkler mine 4" cylinder salute with Ti whistle spolette It didn't show in the video but the crossette had a mine with red and green twinklers that looked really nice in person, and the crossette breaking on the ground was actually a pretty cool unintended effect. The 4" cylinder salute was made with a 5/8" Ti whistle spolette. I put a couple extra seconds of delay on the spolette for effect and was pretty happy with the results. I was surprised how well the salute thumped in the video, the camera was almost a thousand feet away. I haven't made a salute shell in a while, I forgot how fun and easy they are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psyco_1322 Posted May 20, 2008 Share Posted May 20, 2008 Ya Im not sure that H3 is a very good choice for lift in a device. Its usually used as a break charge. But the mine was good. Good stuff cplmac. You make that little 3 shell volley thing one the first video? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cplmac Posted May 20, 2008 Share Posted May 20, 2008 No that W shot dragon eggs was on the class C line about 250 yards closer to the camera. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FREAKYDUTCHMEN Posted May 21, 2008 Share Posted May 21, 2008 Lift: 30 grams of H3 pulveroneStars: Lancaster Chlorate Silver Pumped, 160 gramsBagmine Construction This mine was LOUD! You can hear the echo bouncing back and it's too bad that the movie was turned off because you could hear it going on for much longer! It was the first thing shot out of Miech's 3" mortar and both of us were running up to see if it survived, luckily it did! I was very pleased about this mine, it was my first 3" mine and although the effect was more like a huge silvershower it was a nice effect overall. I'll try this again and take 2 identical mines except, 1 will have a diafragm and 1 won't. See what the diffirence will be. In my opinion (30 grams ) H3 is just sick to use in a 3" mortartube/starmine. Be happy the mortar survived it. Blackpowder 4FA or just pulverone is much better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oskarchem Posted May 21, 2008 Share Posted May 21, 2008 I personally use H3 as lift, because by the time I found a willow tree, my ball mill belt broke, I have a new one coming. But yeah, I teend to use 1/6th of the shell weight to lift my things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brakkie Posted May 21, 2008 Share Posted May 21, 2008 @psyco_1322: I've used H3 many times before on 1" and 1,5" mines with no failures at all. All went perfect. @FREAKYDUTCHMEN: I know pulverone is a better choice but as I said above I've used it many times before. I just could've taken a *tad* less lift that's for sure The main reason I''ve been using H3 is because my regular pulverone wasn't fast enough. I got myself a ballmill now so I'll make some new pulverone with 24h milled meal. Should do MUCH better than coffeegrinded meal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psyco_1322 Posted May 21, 2008 Share Posted May 21, 2008 Im sure it may be fine in smaller mines but I wouldnt recomend trying it in larger ones. You all should try binder your bp with redgum instead or dextrin or a waterbased binder. It seems to give a bit more powder to it. I think its said to be good enough that it doesnt required to be balled milled. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FrankRizzo Posted May 22, 2008 Share Posted May 22, 2008 If granulated and mixed with 4% dextrin, 75:25 H3 is acceptable for lift charges on up to 6" shells. There are a few PGI members that routinely use it for this purpose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cplmac Posted May 24, 2008 Share Posted May 24, 2008 I use it on my cereal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheSidewinder Posted May 24, 2008 Share Posted May 24, 2008 Well, that explains the gas you had last year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cplmac Posted June 22, 2008 Share Posted June 22, 2008 3lb whistle headed with red to white to blue to report box stars I wanted to test these slow burning box stars I made and realized I was going to need rocket altitude to keep the off the ground. I really liked these stars and I'll be using them in the future but they are a touch labor intensive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheSidewinder Posted June 22, 2008 Share Posted June 22, 2008 Those were VERY nice. Good job! And I see what you mean about needing some serious altitude. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frogy Posted June 22, 2008 Share Posted June 22, 2008 Pre-Fire vid of the girandola Girandola Except for the headers failing this girandola worked well. I'm looking forward to building the next one, I was able to recover the frame un-damaged. 3" ID Ti Whistle to Report This rocket did not have the sound I was hoping for and the Ti Salute was visually lacking but overall a successful test of a new fuel and tooling.Haha.. I also liked the "Burning Down the House" background music The Talking Heads are pretty odd though I loved your RWB->Report stars... The white was my favorite...What comp was used for that? Seems like a streamer, but white...Something like Buell -> Better Pearl -> Veline? -> 70\30 Flash? The Red seemed washed out... It was probably just the camera though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psyco_1322 Posted June 23, 2008 Share Posted June 23, 2008 Nice stars, ya they look like they may take some time to make them, but hay all the good things are the ones that take too long to make:D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cplmac Posted June 23, 2008 Share Posted June 23, 2008 I really don't know what the white formula was, there was an issue with the original formula, it didn't work. It was originally a white star formula from Purringtons book, but it would not take fire even from the torch so I had to keep adding oxidizer and charcoal until it would take fire. No idea what the formula was in the end, but it was definitely NOT the formula I started with. The red was the same way also from Purringtons book, I had to add all kinds of crap to that formula to get it to take fire. The blue was my blue formula and worked just fine, the report was regular old 70/30. Pressed a few testers to get increment/burn time worked out then just rammed away and topped off with flash. I really like these stars and you can tweak them to burn however long you want, I could have made these burn for 30 seconds easily. Next time I'm going to break them a LOT harder and use a lot more of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frogy Posted June 23, 2008 Share Posted June 23, 2008 So they're Pressed\Rammed Pill-Box stars that burn slowly? I was thinking of making a willow-type shell with something similar... Have them break upwards into the air only, then fall down slowly. I was planning on using, with lack of a better name, slowed down Better Pearl. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cplmac Posted June 24, 2008 Share Posted June 24, 2008 They are like box stars which are basically star comp in a tube. Better pearl would probably look real nice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_DB_ Posted July 1, 2008 Share Posted July 1, 2008 Nothing special, but I strapped an old BP rocket motor to a post and tested it today. Click "high quality"!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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