The Thrifty Rocketeer blog continues….
Normally, this blog tries to offer you some helpful, constructive ideas.
But at the moment, we’ll take a look at a couple of issues To not try.
Just tonight, I used to be chatting with some rocketry friends by Zoom, and one of many more senior guys holds up a few pieces destined for his excessive power rocket. He’s asking for assist and recommendation on tips on how to proceed.
He’s acquired a medium sized carabiner in his right hand, and in his left is a strip of what he is looking an elastic band. (It seems more just like the headband that Spock wears in Star Trek IV: knitted elastic band The Voyage Home, however regardless of. If you have any sort of concerns pertaining to where and the best ways to utilize woven elastic webbing – Writeablog.net -, you can contact us at the page. )
It’s an extended length or skein of two inch huge elastic band that looks like it might either go in a truss, a bra, or some form of back brace.
And he’s asking, “How do I attach this to that?”
The discussion begins and rules out sewing (trigger the stitches will not stretch), rivets (trigger they’ll pop whenever it stretches), grommets (for a similar reason) and glue, (because it will not “give” without cracking).
One rocketeer mentioned, “Dump it, just get a nylon rope or comparable woven tube, and tie it on”, simply as you would in mountain climbing.
We all just about agreed that the two inch width of the elastic band won’t enable for a tight knot to be tied around the carabiner, so we settle on the nylon tube/rope concept.
Now this started me thinking about the time that I thought-about making my very own shock cord out of elastic. I was doing a scratch build for a recycling show on how you can flip atypical trash into a very simple rocket and nosecone with plastic Wal-Mart bag parachute. For a shock cord, I had settled upon an previous pair of males’s tighty-whitey briefs.
I convinced my spouse to lend me her pinking sheers, and i used a seam ripper to free the elastic band from the pair of shorts. In a short time, I bored with the seam ripper, and went for a straight sharp pair of fabric sheers, and simply minimize as near the waist band as I could.
Now that I had the loop of elastic free, I do not recall if I lower across the appear or ripped it free, however I wound up with a single length of one inch broad elastic that nonetheless had a variety of stretch in it.
Deciding that the band was too extensive, I took the fabric sheers and lower down the center of the band leaving an equal width of elastic band on both side of the reduce. What I hadn’t counted upon was the fraying, which started immediately. The two elastic strips, while about 42 inches lengthy, curled and buckled, refusing to put flat.
This was symptomatic of how the jacquard elastic band band would behave regardless of how I cut it , stretched it, or steam pressed it. I realized that you just Can’t lower an elastic band lengthwise had have it work. (Now, for the needs of my poster board show of the elements of a rocket, it worked properly sufficient, but for actually use in a rocket, my thought would not have worked.)
What WOULD work is the acquisition of about three feet of narrow 1/8-1/4 inch elastic from Joann Fabrics or related store. Apart from the run on this materials to make masks throughout the pandemic, this is able to work for smaller, low-power rockets when you needed to substitute a shock cord.
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