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adding a spark tail to Rcandy


MadMat

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Since trying out BP rockets, I really like the tail I get, but, I've been getting too many catos. I've decided to go back to Rcandy, but want that tail. I have heard that adding titanium will work, but I don't want to end up with crumbly grain. Someone, can't remember who, suggested adding titanium in the amount of 10% of total weight . Anyone have experience with this?

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I've used about 5-6 percent of total weight of titanium. Rcandy is pretty smoky, so the effect was somewhat lost. At higher percentages of total weight the titanium starts to make the hot fuel flaky, which can make it harder to load into tubes. Another recommendation I've heard here is to load the titanium just into the sections of rcandy towards the cap or nose.

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. . . Another recommendation I've heard here is to load the titanium just into the sections of rcandy towards the cap or nose.

 

Yeah, that's what I heard as well. It's something that I've always been interested in trying but haven't got around to. There certainly is a lot of smoke come off r-candy but should it still give a reasonable tail at night I would think.

 

Actually, I wonder what the "smoke" consists of. One thing I do know is that it can be very corrosive.

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Eh... c'mon! You can add small amounts of Ti to almost anything. 10% w/w of Ti amounts to only a little volume of the total, and if you incorporate it while molten (which you MUST with rcandy) it will be well-bound by the propellant. Every particle will be bound-up. (The AmRoc guys do it all the time)

 

Instead of asking for all the advice of the pyro world, TRY IT! That's why pyros are pyros... because we challenge ideas like that. TRY IT.

 

LLoyd

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. . . Instead of asking for all the advice of the pyro world, TRY IT! That's why pyros are pyros... because we challenge ideas like that. TRY IT.

 

LLoyd

 

I agree with you 98.7% Lloyd. The other 1.4% I would say that sometimes you have to ask the questions :)

 

I've asked similar questions a while back, ie. getting a tail from r-candy rockets. It's on my list of things to try but I've become sidetracked... yet again.

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In this case, I'm not chiding you for asking, only for not having gone out and done it already! It's a simple experiment, full of wonders!

 

LLoyd

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Errr, you got me there Lloyd (and I'm the one who always talks about how I love R&D). I did actually try it out right after my original post though. I started out at 7% of total weight. The tail produced was somewhat intermittent but very noticeable!) I did realize that the burn characteristics were altered though. The thrust was not real steady but rather kind of "pulsey". The rocket still flew to an altitude that would be expected so total thrust wasn't considerably altered.

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