A rocket to be...

And now for the second post of this build blog....

I decided to cover some of the aspects I didn't cover in the last post, especially the construction of the "boosters." I have changed how the rocket is going to perform dramatically by simplifying the build process. Since I only have one pair of eyes, I did not want to track five falling objects and retrieve them from the various parts of the launch site. Just seemed like a lot of needless walking! So now the rocket is set for a cluster of either 5 29mm motors, or 4 29 and one 38 or 54mm motor, enough kick to get this almost eleven pound, seven foot tall rocket in the air!

The first pic here is of the booster and the fin alignment:

You will noticed how nice and straight the fin cuts are! I use a dremel with a hole saw attached and pretty much am able to free hand the cut as long as the tube is stable. I then attached the back fin first, more out of habit than necessity. To keep the fin aligned with the tube I use a length of masking tape and drape it over the fin.

You will also notice in the next pic here that the forward fin is now being attached. The clamp you see here is holding two popsicle sticks together to keep the alignment correct. This method works, but it is better to have two clamps one on the back fin and one on the front. It keeps the alignment better, found this out the hard way...

Now comes the meat and potatoes of the rocket. Installing the extended version of the PML KwikSwitch Motor Mount into the tube along with the corresponding piston ejection system. Since the rocket at this point is at an estimated 7 feet long, I was advised that I should have at least thirty feet of shcok cord bundled under the piston with another two to three between the piston and the payload bay. This is where the 24" drogue shoot is going to hide out. The rocket has gone from single deploy to dual deploy and this will be deployed by a PML Co-Pilot, which is now inside the payload bay. I will have pictures of the payload bay in the next post since I have it built, but no pictures of it yet...sound famialiar? :-)

Since the boosters are now complete I can mount them to the motor section. Here are a few pictures of this particular step:

As you can see the rocket right now is getting to be big, my son in the first pic is a little over 4 foot tall. Also in the pic to the right you will see the motor retaining ring in place as well as the 54mm Cesaroni motor casing.

Here they are, all four boosters in place and ready to fire! Next time we will go over the payload section and the upper section. Till next time!