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Nozzleless BP Rockets Article


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The idea was to spell out the difference between dry compaction, damp compaction, and other compaction methods.

http://pyrobin.com/files/Loading%20Considerations%20for%20Nozzleless%20Black%20Powder%20Rockets.docx.pdf

Nice comparisons. A couple of questions:

 

1) Your time intervals are not indicated on the graphs' X axis. Is each square 1/4 second? Asking because doubting you're getting 10s flights upward...

 

2) Hand-rammed consolidation with screen-mixed/dampened BP gave inferior compaction and performance vs pressing. Would be interesting to see outcomes with milled powder, spray dampened or granulated, and with/without inclusion of wax. Would milling speed it up satisfactorily? Would granulating or wax improve hand-rammed consolidation, at least sufficiently to lift a larger shell. I ask because many on this site probably have not yet invested in a press. Just like some have not yet invested in a decent mill.

 

3) When was the Cookbook selling paulownia charcoal? He hasn't stocked it the past couple of years, at least.

 

Tx for sharing your testing results!

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SharkWhisperer, thanks.

 

1) They are whole seconds. What's shown is the whole (estimated) flight time though, not just the upwards part. If the rocket fell back to earth, it would be around 9 seconds generally. Nozzleless rockets have a very long coast phase :)

 

2) That's a lot to consider! I can guess pretty closely by reading between the lines, I think. In 2 motors pressed at the same force, the milled powder added about 10% to the lift. I'd expect around the same difference if the motors were both hand-rammed.

 

Dry granulated powder would make the motors more likely to CATO in my opinion, because part of the compaction force is used up trying to break down the granules and close up firepaths between them.

 

Adding 2% wax takes away around 10% of the lift and makes the grain less dense, so I think it would be a poor choice for a hand-rammed rocket. If I was hand-ramming rockets and did not have a mill, my choice would be to make traditional 'black powder' rockets with nozzles. If I needed more lift, I'd use a larger size motor.

 

For this series of tests, I chose nozzleless rockets to illustrate a specific point. I wanted to quantify the value and performance of water-damped 75-15-10 when used in rockets. There's some pushback from gurus against using 2 1/2% water when pressing black powder into pucks or rocket motors. I wanted to show that pressing black powder into a long skinny tube isn't a whole lot different than pressing black powder into a short fat tube (puck die). There's no need to be afraid of water. My hope was that rocket makers would review factual, documented information, in the hopes that the information could overcome the 'icky' feeling that some old hands might get when exposed to different methods than they are accustomed to. Pyro has a lot of engineers. One would think that any engineer would jump at the opportunity to reduce pressing force. Not so much, IRL ;) It was a respected physicist that suggested I use 2% water to improve grain density in end burner rocket motors. I upped it to 2 1/2 to make up for any losses in handling.

 

3) The paulownia charcoal was gifted to me some time a go by a generous American pyro, for testing purposes. I think Fireworks Cookbook stopped making charcoal because they had a fire a while back. At that time, paulownia was the popular charcoal flavor. ERC is now in top spot for popularity.

 

To the group: Sorry I linked to the article rather than posting it here. The reason I put it on Pyrobin is because I wanted the charts to be legible. Fireworking.com compresses the charts too much and makes them practically illegible. I'll see if I can copy and paste it on this forum, but my abilities in that area are severely limited.

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SharkWhisperer, thanks.

 

1) They are whole seconds. What's shown is the whole (estimated) flight time though, not just the upwards part. If the rocket fell back to earth, it would be around 9 seconds generally. Nozzleless rockets have a very long coast phase :)

 

2) That's a lot to consider! I can guess pretty closely by reading between the lines, I think. In 2 motors pressed at the same force, the milled powder added about 10% to the lift. I'd expect around the same difference if the motors were both hand-rammed.

 

Dry granulated powder would make the motors more likely to CATO in my opinion, because part of the compaction force is used up trying to break down the granules and close up firepaths between them.

 

Adding 2% wax takes away around 10% of the lift and makes the grain less dense, so I think it would be a poor choice for a hand-rammed rocket. If I was hand-ramming rockets and did not have a mill, my choice would be to make traditional 'black powder' rockets with nozzles. If I needed more lift, I'd use a larger size motor.

 

For this series of tests, I chose nozzleless rockets to illustrate a specific point. I wanted to quantify the value and performance of water-damped 75-15-10 when used in rockets. There's some pushback from gurus against using 2 1/2% water when pressing black powder into pucks or rocket motors. I wanted to show that pressing black powder into a long skinny tube isn't a whole lot different than pressing black powder into a short fat tube (puck die). There's no need to be afraid of water. My hope was that rocket makers would review factual, documented information, in the hopes that the information could overcome the 'icky' feeling that some old hands might get when exposed to different methods than they are accustomed to. Pyro has a lot of engineers. One would think that any engineer would jump at the opportunity to reduce pressing force. Not so much, IRL ;) It was a respected physicist that suggested I use 2% water to improve grain density in end burner rocket motors. I upped it to 2 1/2 to make up for any losses in handling.

 

3) The paulownia charcoal was gifted to me some time a go by a generous American pyro, for testing purposes. I think Fireworks Cookbook stopped making charcoal because they had a fire a while back. At that time, paulownia was the popular charcoal flavor. ERC is now in top spot for popularity.

 

To the group: Sorry I linked to the article rather than posting it here. The reason I put it on Pyrobin is because I wanted the charts to be legible. Fireworking.com compresses the charts too much and makes them practically illegible. I'll see if I can copy and paste it on this forum, but my abilities in that area are severely limited.

Hi, On point #2, I wasn't suggesting ramming dry granulated powder. A lot of folks that hand ram use granulated because it's less dusty than milldust. But after several difficult-to-predict catos, I too switched from dry granulate to re-dampended granulate for hand ramming, with great results. I wet granulate mill-dust, not so much to get granules, but to get more intimate component mixing. Dust made from granulates definitely burns faster than predecessor milldust. But I add back 2% water to granulate (usually <40 mesh--without binder, the stuff's easy to reduce to tiny granules) before ramming and it works well. I wouldn't ever expect densities of a press, but it's pretty reproducible. That's why I was querying the difference between hand-rammed wetted screen-mixed BP vs rewetted milled/granulated BP (not dry granules). I guess I wasn't clear. Sounds logical that oil or wax would slow any burn. I wonder if wax would really reduce hand-ramming consolidation, though? All speculation till ya test it!

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SharkWhisperer, OK I misunderstood your questions it seems. I agree totally about the convenience of using granulated propellant, and that using wet-granulated mill dust would be better than just using dampened mill dust. I've never granulated, dried, and then re-dampened. I would expect a very good result from doing that.

 

As far as the wax goes, in pressed rockets it reduced the grain density for me, compared to dry powder, whether the dry powder was granulated or not. I would expect it to do the same in hand-rammed rockets. The wax or oil apparently takes up room in the tube, where the water does not. I checked it out a long time ago because I thought the wax was allowing for better compaction.

 

My first rockets were nozzleless, made with 2% wax. When I tried to increase the thrust by removing the wax, they all CATOed. Even on universal tooling. To be honest, I was using large increments back then- 8 per rocket. That's when I decided to wax the tube. No more CATOes. The wax helped overcome the defect in my process, which was my use of ridiculously large increments. I solved the problem I created ;)

 

I've done very little work with hand-rammed rockets. When I first wanted to get into rockets, a guy had a terrible accident hand-ramming a BP rocket, and showed lurid pictures of a mangled hand. That was it for me, I was gonna press everything! As it turned out, the accident was later attributed to whistle fuel up inside the drift from a previous rocket, which never got cleaned out. I still think ramming a rocket with your hand around it is not something I would ever do. Dave Sleeter shows a fixture for holding the rocket while ramming that also serves to center the spindle in the tube. It acts as a blast shield of sorts as well. I've never made one of his fixtures, but it seems like a very good idea.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thank you very much for sharing this.

Just a thought considering the ball milling:
You compare
-"normal" ball milled BP
-ballmilled saltpeter with pre milled charcoal and sulphur

We dont know how fine sulphur and charcoal are delivered, and how much there is to gain by ball milling them too.
A much more interesting comparison would imho be "normal" ball milled BP vs. double and double component milled BP or individually milled components.

Thus eliminating/reducing these uncertainties.

The question is (for me) if the maximum possible performance is achievable without the classic dangerous milling of a live composition.
I guess I'm not the only one that has simply no proper place to do that. Protection is one thing and probably doable, preventing other people noticing the acoustical and optical byproducts of a mishap is another...

(We dont all live in the US...)

 

 

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mabuse00, you raise good points. I have already done some of the work you mention before, and wrote up the results in different articles. This time, the point was to compare different things, and show the value of using water when making nozzleless black powder rockets.

 

Regarding the single component milling, pre-milling the charcoal is the main key to making good black powder by screen-mixing. Sulfur is usually purchased as a fine powder already, but recently I had to buy it as small flat discs. I found that simply ball milling it was a poor way to process it. I then used a (Magic Bullet) blade mill, and used what passed 100 mesh. I'm fairly certain that further milling of the sulfur with the charcoal would give an improvement over single component milling, but I'm already getting good results, so I haven't bothered with it so far.

 

Like you, I don't feel comfortable running a mill with live black powder if I can make it by other means. Screen-mixed black powder can work as well as commercial black powder for lift, in my experience.

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  • 1 month later...

Hi, On point #2, I wasn't suggesting ramming dry granulated powder. A lot of folks that hand ram use granulated because it's less dusty than milldust. But after several difficult-to-predict catos, I too switched from dry granulate to re-dampended granulate for hand ramming, with great results. I wet granulate mill-dust, not so much to get granules, but to get more intimate component mixing. Dust made from granulates definitely burns faster than predecessor milldust. But I add back 2% water to granulate (usually <40 mesh--without binder, the stuff's easy to reduce to tiny granules) before ramming and it works well. I wouldn't ever expect densities of a press, but it's pretty reproducible. That's why I was querying the difference between hand-rammed wetted screen-mixed BP vs rewetted milled/granulated BP (not dry granules). I guess I wasn't clear. Sounds logical that oil or wax would slow any burn. I wonder if wax would really reduce hand-ramming consolidation, though? All speculation till ya test it!

Another thing I've done with regard to moisture and granulating is to make a moist granulate. I take the powder, moisten it with 2 1/2% water, and make soft pucks. I force these soft pucks through a heavy mesh screen, and put the resulting product in an airtight container until it's ready to be used. No drying time is a plus.

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Another thing I've done with regard to moisture and granulating is to make a moist granulate. I take the powder, moisten it with 2 1/2% water, and make soft pucks. I force these soft pucks through a heavy mesh screen, and put the resulting product in an airtight container until it's ready to be used. No drying time is a plus.

With respect, I'm not sure what you're gaining here. If my interpretation of "soft" pucks is correct, you're just light-compressing (by hand) moist BP into discs before pushing it through a screen? My guess can't be right because if I add 2.5% water to my BP mill dust and mix it in properly, I simply cannot tell by eye or touch that any water at all was ever added (charcoal's a great sponge). I use around 20% v/w IPA for consolidating dough lumps to granulate. I'm sure I'm misinterpreting something here about your process. So you must be pressing your pucks with force into actual pucks (maybe soft but highly compressed nonetheless). Anyways, if you're getting the desired moisture in a low-dust format BP and it stays that way in sealed storage til use, well...why not?

 

For me, unless I needed higher-density granules, for loading BP pistol rounds for example where you need a maximum mass of BP possible in a limited volume and uncompressed granular isn't dense enough, ok, I'd compress into pucks. But what's the advantage of the pucking effort if you don't need high-density granules for lift/burst? Anyways, clearly, it works!

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When you granulate your dust, you have to moisten it, push it through a screen and then dry it. Then you re-moisten it.

 

Instead, I moisten, make soft pucks, and push it through a screen to create a ready to use product.

 

It's a personal choice for sure, but I don't need any drying time or space. I could simply add the moisture to the powder and screen it in well to save labor, but it doesn't flow as nicely as when it's granulated.

 

I did refer to this before as 'pre-densifying' the propellant and it is indeed more dense than regular screen-granulated black powder. I make 4" diameter pucks a few at a time and crumble them through a heavy 10 mesh screen. If it's too hard to push them through easily, I use a bit less pressing force on the next ones. My granules are not hard or even in size.

 

With your method no press is necessary, and a hand rammer might not have a press. If they did, they might not be hand rammers ;) jk, hand ramming is just not a good option for me.

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I am following. Today I milled up the fastest batch and black powder I can make made with Willow mixed with a bit of Poplar. It is now dried and granulated. Tomorrow I will attempt to press my first nozzleless rocket on the only tooling that I have which is universal. I am going to film the first launch in slow-mo. Tubes are waxed. And I am a firm believer in the 2% water added to granulated fuel. Any tips / predictions? Edited by Uarbor
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I'm curious what pressing force you will use. Will there be a dummy shell on top? I lifted 4" ball shells with that tooling, but my propellant had 2% wax in it instead of water. I would have liked more height on mine, but I think your use of water instead of wax will get you some more height because the grain is a lot more dense.

 

Are you going to spritz the water into your mix at 2%, and then let it temper in a closed container? I've never re-wetted dry granules like SW does. Always something new to try with rockets :)

 

Got my popcorn ready. 10, 9, 8, 7........

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I'm curious what pressing force you will use. Will there be a dummy shell on top? I lifted 4" ball shells with that tooling, but my propellant had 2% wax in it instead of water. I would have liked more height on mine, but I think your use of water instead of wax will get you some more height because the grain is a lot more dense.

 

Are you going to spritz the water into your mix at 2%, and then let it temper in a closed container? I've never re-wetted dry granules like SW does. Always something new to try with rockets :)

 

Got my popcorn ready. 10, 9, 8, 7........

funny you should ask about the pressure. I was going for about 5000 PSI on the grain but the first one was so hard to remove from the spindle that I pulled the fuel grain all the way to the bottom of the tube on my first one. It did not help that I forgot to wax the spindle. I figured it was going to be a definite Cato and did not bother filming it. It flew very well. So I quickly decided that I would use 3400 PSI like all of my other Rockets. I take about a hundred grams of fuel and spread it out on some wax paper give it a couple spritzes of water and then screen it. (I already know that 4 spritzings on this amount of fuel will give me to the 2% I need.) So it ends up getting Spritz and screened 4 times. I used to just spray it in the container and stir it around but then you definitely had to let it set overnight to equilibriate. You can definitely get away with immediate pressing and firing with the screening method . I use a 10 mesh . after pressing the fuelg is nice and shiny and hard I tried to get a photo but it didn't come out very well. Anyway, after pressing at 3400 PSI on the grain everything was El perfecto. I even felt confident enough to add a touch of vitamin f. I am very happy and very hooked on the idea of nozzleless. I have not tried any dummy heads yet but it looks from what I can tell like it ought to at least lift a 3 inch shell higher than my old Rockets with the slowed-down fuel. Time will tell. I definitely enjoy the experimentation

 

https://youtube.com/shorts/PAXbNdWOYeQ?feature=share

Edited by Uarbor
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Uarbor, cool beans! Thanks also for another validation for using lower pressing forces than has been typically used with dry propellants. Once you get a little more confident still, you can try adding a nozzle and using your slow powder above the spindle tip to create a nozzled rocket that zips and has a good tail too. Just thinking out loud here. I believe the universal tooling is ideal for the newer rocket explorer. I have it in quite a few sizes :)

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Uarbor, cool beans! Thanks also for another validation for using lower pressing forces than has been typically used with dry propellants. Once you get a little more confident still, you can try adding a nozzle and using your slow powder above the spindle tip to create a nozzled rocket that zips and has a good tail too. Just thinking out loud here. I believe the universal tooling is ideal for the newer rocket explorer. I have it in quite a few sizes :)

that's just what I did today. I put some of that super fast fuel in a rocket with a nozzle. I scraped off the wax near the end where the nozzle would be. Used the old fuel with a healthy dose of titanium for the delay. I was certain it was going to explode. So I figured why not add 10 grams of vitamin f. It flew like a bat out of hell perfect delay perfect report at about twice as high as the last rocket. This fuel is so fast I can't believe I got away with a nozzle. I did not film the rocket but here is a shot of how fast the fuel is

 

https://youtu.be/TpaqnK3CehQ

Edited by Uarbor
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Whoomp! Glad you are having such fun with the universal tooling. The main causes of CATO are

 

1) Poor consolidation. The water takes care of that. This problem used to be addressed (when nobody used water) by increasing the loading pressure, which caused the tube walls to be pulled down, or caused the inner layers of paper to split. When the motor was allowed to 'relax', the tube re-expanded somewhat, and caused cracks in the propellant grain, leading to over-pressure- and CATO. Now that more folks are using water and realizing the benefit of lower pressing forces, these problems are less likely.

 

2) Fire sneaking up between the propellant grain and the tube wall, causing gross over-pressure. There are a lot of reasons for this, but waxing the tube is like adding a gasket to prevent that.

 

Laduke's universal tooling has a very large nozzle opening compared to standard BP tooling, and is very forgiving. At the moment of ignition, a nozzleless rocket has the same size opening for the escaping combustion products as a nozzled rocket. Without the nozzle, the thrust decreases during the burn, theoretically. With a nozzle, the thrust increases because there's more surface area of propellant burning as the grain burns from the core outwards. In practice, my thrust curves shape for nozzleless rockets look about the same as those for nozzled rockets. My uneducated guess is that it's because I light the motor with J-hooked visco at the bottom of the propellant grain. Maybe Dagabu or somebody else could clarify that point. I'm guessing, based on what I see in the charts.

 

When you add a nozzle, you are keeping the thrust from dropping throughout the burn, but the nozzle is also taking up space that would have been full with propellant in a nozzled rocket. Black powder tooling has a longer, thinner spindle and a smaller nozzle opening, so it's less forgiving than universal tooling. Removing the motor from the spindle is a lot harder with a nozzled rocket because the nozzle mix grabs the spindle. This becomes an issue when the motors are of larger sizes. Waxing the nozzle area of the spindle is helpful. Using a mix made with Dr. Elseys Precious Cat litter and a bit of graphite shaken in is also helpful. Twisting the rocket off the spindle by Steve Laduke's 'Visegrip' method is also helpful. Nowadays most people use the spindle 'puller'. Sometimes the puller pulls the grain down in a waxed tube, especially if the wax is too thick. Or, the bottom portion of the propellant grains cracks or crumbles. Dagabu's Acme thread tooling would perfectly solve this issue, but nobody makes tooling that way except him, that I've seen.

 

I've mentioned this before, but Steve Laduke's notes on using the universal tooling is a GOLDMINE of information. I know it's floating around somewhere, but I can't find it except behind a paywall at Fireworking.com. He describes many different ways to make different types of rockets, all on that one set of tooling. I think you are starting to see what you can get away with. If your fast BP rocket would have exploded, you could have mixed fast and slow powder to even out the burn, or you could have just used less fast and more slow.

 

All this rambling is mostly stuff I've learned from other rocket makers along the way and then applied to my rockets. There's very little original thought involved. This is how SLD writes too;) I will see if I can track down his notes and get permission to post them. He's big on sharing his knowledge.

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Whoomp! Glad you are having such fun with the universal tooling. The main causes of CATO are

 

1) Poor consolidation. The water takes care of that. This problem used to be addressed (when nobody used water) by increasing the loading pressure, which caused the tube walls to be pulled down, or caused the inner layers of paper to split. When the motor was allowed to 'relax', the tube re-expanded somewhat, and caused cracks in the propellant grain, leading to over-pressure- and CATO. Now that more folks are using water and realizing the benefit of lower pressing forces, these problems are less likely.

 

2) Fire sneaking up between the propellant grain and the tube wall, causing gross over-pressure. There are a lot of reasons for this, but waxing the tube is like adding a gasket to prevent that.

 

Laduke's universal tooling has a very large nozzle opening compared to standard BP tooling, and is very forgiving. At the moment of ignition, a nozzleless rocket has the same size opening for the escaping combustion products as a nozzled rocket. Without the nozzle, the thrust decreases during the burn, theoretically. With a nozzle, the thrust increases because there's more surface area of propellant burning as the grain burns from the core outwards. In practice, my thrust curves shape for nozzleless rockets look about the same as those for nozzled rockets. My uneducated guess is that it's because I light the motor with J-hooked visco at the bottom of the propellant grain. Maybe Dagabu or somebody else could clarify that point. I'm guessing, based on what I see in the charts.

 

When you add a nozzle, you are keeping the thrust from dropping throughout the burn, but the nozzle is also taking up space that would have been full with propellant in a nozzled rocket. Black powder tooling has a longer, thinner spindle and a smaller nozzle opening, so it's less forgiving than universal tooling. Removing the motor from the spindle is a lot harder with a nozzled rocket because the nozzle mix grabs the spindle. This becomes an issue when the motors are of larger sizes. Waxing the nozzle area of the spindle is helpful. Using a mix made with Dr. Elseys Precious Cat litter and a bit of graphite shaken in is also helpful. Twisting the rocket off the spindle by Steve Laduke's 'Visegrip' method is also helpful. Nowadays most people use the spindle 'puller'. Sometimes the puller pulls the grain down in a waxed tube, especially if the wax is too thick. Or, the bottom portion of the propellant grains cracks or crumbles. Dagabu's Acme thread tooling would perfectly solve this issue, but nobody makes tooling that way except him, that I've seen.

 

I've mentioned this before, but Steve Laduke's notes on using the universal tooling is a GOLDMINE of information. I know it's floating around somewhere, but I can't find it except behind a paywall at Fireworking.com. He describes many different ways to make different types of rockets, all on that one set of tooling. I think you are starting to see what you can get away with. If your fast BP rocket would have exploded, you could have mixed fast and slow powder to even out the burn, or you could have just used less fast and more slow.

 

All this rambling is mostly stuff I've learned from other rocket makers along the way and then applied to my rockets. There's very little original thought involved. This is how SLD writes too;) I will see if I can track down his notes and get permission to post them. He's big on sharing his knowledge.

I don't mind a little rambling LOL I'm grateful for any info I can get. I did see about a three-page conglomeration of Steve Leduc recipes for Universal tooling. It look like it was cobbled together from several different articles It included the long-range screamer and others. That's how I settled on my potassium benzoate red iron oxide recipe I'm going to eventually make. I've got all the stuff but I really want to explore black powder more thoroughly first. I have a feeling black powder is going to be my overall favorite. By the way I have never had a Bonafide Cato that wasn't anything more than just the bulkhead failing and setting off the header. So I figured I would go for broke and dial it back if necessary. I'm going to have to fly a few more to make sure it's going to be okay but I will bet it will be. I have firesmith tooling and he did say that you could use hot black powder with a nozzle. I figured he meant screen mixed so I was a bit apprehensive about the milled. Edited by Uarbor
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I had a quick look around and found an extremely long conversation between a few big names in rockets, including (of course), the originator of the universal tooling- Steve Laduke. The links in the index at the beginning don't work, but the entire lists of conversations is a good, informative read for anybody that bothers to scroll through it all. Anybody that doesn't find value in it may be dead ;) I don't know anything about legality or copyright issues or how they could pertain to this collection of posts, but anybody with concerns can address the poster of the info, if they like. I'm just the linker :)

 

http://pyrobin.com/files/steve%20laduke%27s%20hybrid-universal%20rocket%20kit%20-%20passfire%20threads.pdf

 

I have gotten permission from Mr. Laduke to post any of his rocket information I can find, as long is it is not being sold.

 

These discussions took place before tube-waxing and before it became popular to add a bit of water to BP propellants. Either or both of these techniques could be used as deemed fit to increase reliability and performance.

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One thing I see that hasn't changed over the years with Laduke, reading into some of that, he gets frustrated when people start making things more complicated then they should. I see this happen often in other forums. I don't blame him. I feel it every time he says, "It doesn't have to be that hard." I love reading every one of his posts. All great stuff!

 

Pretty awesome of him (as always) to let you share everything of his as long as it's not sold.. I'm very thankful for people like Mr. Laduke.

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