Printing calculator paper tape (~70 gsm), many layers glued with PVA. Resulting thickness about 2 mm, hard as a rock. 6 mm ID, 50 mm overall length, 2mm diameter cavity full length of 35 mm grain. Cat litter nozzle 8 mm thick, bulkhead of paper wadding and hot-melt glue.
Motor was rammed over a mandrel. I suceeded in breaking the timber drift I was using while making this rocket. The construction was quite sound however, I carefully completed the device with what was left of the broken drift.
Blackpowder propellant, but the meal was ball milled with a handful of balls in a 75 ml container for only 30 minutes. Ingredients were pulverised seperately in coffee mills before ball milling to integrate them. Quite a small batch, 10 grams total. A small quantity tested in free-air burnt cleanly but not all that quickly compared to my normal three-hour meal.
The general idea was to produce something a little better than greenmix, but not so hot as to CATO the motor as the last batch of meal rockets have all done.
Meal-NC tissue paper fuse, kebab stick.
Motor CATOed, bugger!
At least this time the case didn't rupture. The bulkhead was launched a /long/ way up. The CATO was fairly quiet, just a whoof sound, rather like a motar lift. I guess that is actually what the motor turned into, launching the hot-melt glue and wadding slug far into the sky. It took a full /four/ seconds for them to land, still smoldering.
The rocket was driven down onto the launch tube quite firmly. The tube cutting into the tape that held the stick in place.
The case was left in such good condition you could probably clean and reload it. The cooler meal definately helped prevent a more violent containment failure. As can be seen from the video the grain was left in the case and burnt for a few a short period after the bulkhead was gone.
| title | type | size |
|---|---|---|
| Rocket CATO | video/x-msvideo | 758.598 kbytes |
| Pre-Launch Picture | image/jpeg | 69.951 kbytes |
| Post-Mortem Picture | image/jpeg | 35.963 kbytes |