Aluminum Blast Plate for Rocket

[Mike Walsh]

Hi folks,

After several months of building, I had a missing piece to the puzzle for my Level 3 certification rocket. I needed a plate to mount my motor retainer to. I had it all designed when I designed the rocket, but my friend wasn't able to steal some time on a CNC mill, which left me without a finished product.

Decided to think outside the box, as I am not exactly comfortable with just laying things out. Decided to use circular interpolation to find all my points. Thankfully this is a fairly simple diagram. Messed up on the first one (you might be able to notice in the photos), which led to #2 being made. I used a lathe to turn the OD and ID as I did have access to a lathe. Everything came out spot on and I can't complain!

[Mike Walsh]

Oh, yeh... I did get my Level 3 certification.

[neanderman]

Very cool.

What fuel?

What altitude will it reach?

I assume you have a way to track it for retrieval?

[hammermill]

congrats on getting the level 3 cert. i know it is a long process involving many flights.


are you flying with black powder , nco3 or nitrous oxide and fuel pellets of pexiglass


been a few years since i was out the the flight line i hate to admit

[Mike Walsh]

I am using APCP rocket motors - same type of fuel as in the Space Shuttle's SRBs.

The rocket flew to 3,900' and recovered using two stage recovery (drogueless, similar to skydiving - til 1,800' and the main was deployed at that apogee).

The rocket weighed 55 lbs on the pad and I had two RF trackers on board for recovery as the nose cone went off on it's own under a parachute (used as a pilot to pull the main parachute from the deployment bag).

I have another rocket, which flew to 9,000' on the same type of fuel with a smaller motor.

Mike