Bottle Rocket Sticks

[alexpyro101]

Anybody know a method to quickly estimate the length of a stick needed for a bottle rocket? I don't like when i get a brand new stick and estimate the size and glue it on, then keep having to trim off the stick in very small increments to avoid cutting too short. Any ideas on how to make this faster? I would like to be able to just attach the stick and only have to cut once to save time.

[Short5]

If it balances anywhere fron just below the nozzle to half way up the motor it should fly fine. After making a few you just get used to estimating it and only have to cut once. Some people use a stick 6 times the motor length regardless of balance.

[alexpyro101]

have you ever tried sticks 6x the motor length? I've never heard of that, just the balancing

[The504]

I've only balanced it. I hate trimming it too, it wastes most of the stick.

 

 

 

[Short5]

have you ever tried sticks 6x the motor length? I've never heard of that, just the balancing

I have not built one by design to test it but I have noticed my 4 ounce rockets with a header end up with a stick approximately that length. I find there is a pretty wide margin of error before they become unstable. Attatching a motor crooked will commonly cause them to cork screw a bit but in my experience a to long or too short stick, within reason, will just cause a bit of tail wagging on the way up.

 

What are you trying to achieve that you are currently doing so much trimming? if you are making the same size rockets just make one how you want it and measure the stick for future reference. Add some length if you add a header.

[alexpyro101]

I have not built one by design to test it but I have noticed my 4 ounce rockets with a header end up with a stick approximately that length. I find there is a pretty wide margin of error before they become unstable. Attatching a motor crooked will commonly cause them to cork screw a bit but in my experience a to long or too short stick, within reason, will just cause a bit of tail wagging on the way up.

 

What are you trying to achieve that you are currently doing so much trimming? if you are making the same size rockets just make one how you want it and measure the stick for future reference. Add some length if you add a header.

 

i just trim them til they pass the balance test. If i had some tooling i would just measure sticks and cut them to length, but my friend has yet to turn them on his lathe, i might just have to go learn to use it and turn it myself

[yvariro]

Try 8x the length of the motor I saw that on a good site who explain how to make some very good rocket

[dagabu]

I LOVE this question but it has been beat to death elsewhere here in other posts:

 

Rocket Sticks

 

-dag

[Juiceh]

What size rockets are you making? You say bottle rockets, so I'm thinking 1/4" motors.

 

Bamboo skewers from the grocery store work great for that size. I bought 2 packs of 100 from the grocery store yesterday... $0.25 a pack! It was a Jewel I stopped at on my way home from work. The skewers were all gone from the normal isle location and they are $1 for 100. But I found someone and asked them and they pointed me to some that were on a rack in the back by the meat dept. I looked at the receipt afterwards they were $.75 with a -$.50 discount each!

 

For 1/4" bottle rockets with no headers up to 1" OD headers I use 1 skewer. If I strap a 1-3/4" header to a strong 1/4" motor I use 2 sticks.

 

 

I'm stopping at Jewel on my way home to grab more! LoL!

Edited August 3, 2012 by Juiceh

[Oinikis]

L1xM1=L2xM2 L1 here is distance from your balance pont to the balance point of stick (the middle) M1 is the mass of the stick M2 is the mass of the rocket and L2 is the distance betwen balance point ant the balance point of the rocket, however this is not very usefull i think, but if you make same sized rockets, the lenght of stick will be same.