curing temp for Aeropoxy

[Warren B. MusselmanModerator]

Good to see you Doug. Hope you’re doing well and look forward to having you fly with us again, preferably with me around to see it.

Yes, MD does mean minimum diameter.

I did move over to stationary v-bagging, but to be honest I just wasn’t good enough at it to produce tubing as consistent as Performance Rocketry or Hawk Mountain. Call it mandrel problems or user error, I never found any tubing I made over 38mm to be worth the bother compared to commercial tubing.

If I had a need for a specific size tubing and I had to make it from scratch, I’d get a tapered mandrel machined and I’d v-bag it over the mandrel.

[AdrianParticipant]

I’ve had a lot of flaws in my scratch tubing too, but they’ve been mostly cosmetic. I’m making my own tubes for 2 reasons: I like using mostly axial unidirectional fibers for more efficient tube bending strength, 2. For my current project I’m gearing up to use 600F epoxy for everything, in hopes of getting my rocket back from a Mach 3.3 flight unscathed. Commercial carbon-fiber tubes shred when you put the biggest and baddest motors in them.

[Warren B. MusselmanModerator]

My complaints Adrian were all purely cosmetic. I wanted to make tubing that looked as good or better than the PF tubing I’ve mostly been using since. All I ever have to do with that is wet sand down to 320 and then do the priming and painting and ever-finer wet sanding process. No voids, no wrinkles, no uneven weave. I’m sure I could do better now, but the time-value I place on it means I’d rather be making rockets than making tubing. (Actually these days its been making furniture and remodeling the house instead of making rockets.)

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