Percussion Caps?

[Keith]

I learned a problem with the arrow launched variety of explosive: the arrow occasionally returns much faster than it left.

OWW, coffee just shot out my nose! :crackup: :crackup:
A friend and I once tried to make a super firecracker with the powder from about a box worth of cut open shotgun shells. Fortunatly, that powder just burns and doesn't explode under those conditions. Don't ask about what we played guns with. :shake: :youcrazy: How I ever lived this long is a plain mystery to me.

 

[musketman]

I got you all beat for stupid things as a kid...

I took a model rocket with a hollow nose cone (removed the parachute) filled the nose cone with FFFFg and placed a percussion cap on a pre-drilled hole at the nose cone's tip, then glued the nose cone in place...

I was making a surface to air missile, only it turned out to be a surface to neighbor's gutter missile...

Blew that sucker right off the side of his house...

Forgot, what goes up, comes down... :crackup:

It tops the time I tried to make home-made naypalm...

 

[mec]

Yeh, the Estee people hate when you do that. Bad name for Model Rocketry or something. I used bb tubes full of firecracker powder and pointed the fuze down into the backfire portion of the motor. What is intended to light a second stage, deploy a chute or put the rocket into tumble down mode works very well to ignite the bomb.

One night, i had one go unstable and instead of reaching for the clounds it arched over a neighbor's house and went off like an artillery round. Lit up the whole house and probably knocked the neighbors out of bed.

 

[Stumpkiller]

Oh Lord, whole chapters about my adventures with Estes and Centuri model rockets. Now, I'm a member of the AMA (Academy of Model Aeronautics) and model rockets fall under their jurisdiction, so I shouldn't give the best stories (I could be defrocked).

One, not my fault, I swear, was a Mach-10 rocket that was supposed to go up like a rocket, eject the spent engine with a streamer and glide back (looked like a little Mig-15). Beautiful little thing. First flight it just cleared the launch rod (3 feet) and did a right angle turn and shot between my friend and I . . . pretty much doing mach ten just like it was named! By the time we stood back up and looked where it had "flown" there was a smoking hole 100 yards away in Mrs. Weaver's porch screen. My beautiful little rocket/jet fighter looked like a section of burnt dryer hose. By the time we got to it the ejection charge had ignited the streamer (and "flame-resistant wadding", aka "Kleenex") and it was burning merrily on the melting outdoor carpet. Shoveled walks and mowed lawns there for a whole year. That one didn't stay in the catalog long. I think there was a design flaw. :haha:

http://www.ninfinger.org/~sven/rockets/nostalgia/72cen032.jpg

We used to launch in a fairgrounds beside the Susquehanna River, and my best ever, three-stage rocket took an unexpected tilt and ended up last being seen on the way to Ohio far across the river and still climbing. I also lost my first "D" engine rocket on the first flight. A Cherokee-D with the, by gum, largest D engine recommended. I think I may have achieved orbit with that one. It went straight up forever. We never even saw the talcum-powdered chute "puff". Usually a good visual indication of a returning rocket.

I think 90% of my paper-route $ went into rocket engines.

I've still got a couple in the cellar that returned from dad's attic when the house was sold that I didn't have the heart to throw away. Maybe I should get a few engines and see if they still work. NEVER see kids launching anymore. Shame.

Now I fly R/C aircraft. Just trying to land them is enough excitement for my old ticker. :shocking:

 

[musketman]

I think 90% of my paper-route $ went into rocket engines.

For the recoard, model rocket motors are made from compressed black powder, no wonder they smell so good going off... :winking:

 

[montanadan]

MUSKETMAN- STUMPKILLER You guys had me laughing so hard, and brought back a lot of good memories. Just goes to show you that kids today do not know how to have fun? Thanks again...Respectfully Montanadan