Vellum rockets - web resources

[jsdemar]

I was looking around for tips on making rockets from vellum paper. It has been 20 years since I last made them, so I needed a refresher. Here are the links I've found. Please add more tips!

Vellum rockets thread on TRF from 2007: http://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread....um-rockets

Dan Wolf's article from 1992 Sport Rocketry:  https://www.nar.org/wp-content/uploads/2...s-Wolf.pdf

Andy Tomasch 1998 R&D report:  https://www.apogeerockets.com/downloads/PDFs/tomash.pdf

From NARTS:  NAR Tech Review - Vol. 8, From MARSCON '93, presentation by John Viggiano (a former teammate of mine).

Are there any more recent material choices or techniques?

  -John DeMar
   NAR 52094, L3

[Jeffrey Deem]

I was looking around for tips on making rockets from vellum paper. It has been 20 years since I last made them, so I needed a refresher. Here are the links I've found. Please add more tips!

Vellum rockets thread on TRF from 2007: http://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread....um-rockets

Dan Wolf's article from 1992 Sport Rocketry:  https://www.nar.org/wp-content/uploads/2...s-Wolf.pdf

Andy Tomasch 1998 R&D report:  https://www.apogeerockets.com/downloads/PDFs/tomash.pdf

From NARTS:  NAR Tech Review - Vol. 8, From MARSCON '93, presentation by John Viggiano (a former teammate of mine).

Are there any more recent material choices or techniques?

  -John DeMar
   NAR 52094, L3

---

I am not aware of anything newer. However Thanks for posting the links. Several of these I was not aware of.

[George Gassaway]

Hi John. Thanks for posting!

There is an article I posted on my website about making Kapton body tubes. Not vellum, but similar technique for how to use a rectangular piece of material to make a cylindrical tube.

http://georgesrockets.com/GRP/Articles/Kapton.htm



I've never made an all-Kapton body, only used it for the main tube (18mm for PD models, 30mm for PD and internal copter models for NAR flying, and 40mm for FAI flying such as S9A models.  For test and "flyoffs" models, often used paper tailcones and commercial tubing for the engine mount. For my S9A models, made up fiberglass tail sections (cone and engine tube) with Kapton used for the 40mm section.

Here is a photo of Herb Vinyard in 2008, with an S9A model using a Kapton 40mm tube with fiberglass tail section.



For those without mandrels for aligning parts for gluing, this is the trick I've used. An Axial Jig, using a long piece of tubing the same diameter as the engine mount tube, centering rings secured to it, and a coupler tube at the end to hold the engine mount tube straight:

https://sites.google.com/site/xfaispacem...ubejig.gif