I somewhat disagree, Mark. Although a lot of the ideas pitched above (trimmed down TP tube comes to mind) would be heavier, a cardstock tube made from a single layer of 110# cardstock would be lighter than a similar sized Estes tube. And it would still be plenty strong for a motor tube (I've flown cardstock models with up to an E9 without any trouble). I did some experimentation on BT-20 sized tubes and 8" of various tubes weigh:

Estes BT-20 = 3.9g
110# cardstock = 2.5g
67# cardstock = 2.2g

I would think that it wouldn't be any different with BT-50 tubing. Indeed, I was thinking of substituting 110# cardstock for the various tanks on the Outlander to save weight - done well and after painting, one wouldn't know the difference. And since there are quite a few of them, they would save a lot of weight.

Greg

I have been known to be frugal a time or two, but to me it is just nonsense to be attempting to roll ones own tubes when they are available VERY cheaply from numerous sources.
IMHO, WAAAYYYY too much hassle and time wasted for the few PENNIES it MAY save.
Rolling ones own tubes is a semi-lost art that should move into the completely lost category.

__________________
When in doubt, WHACK the GAS and DITCH the brake !!!

Yes, there is such a thing as NORMAL, if you have to ask what is "NORMAL" , you probably aren't !
Failure may not be an OPTION, but it is ALWAYS a POSSIBILITY.
ALL systems are GO for MAYHEM, CHAOS, and HAVOC !

I don't see why those who don't care to roll tubes need to bother with those who do. It may seem like a lost art, but one of the cool things about the internet is the ability to preserve and share obscure skills. Also, sometimes brand new technologies are brought to fruition with the aid of memories of obscure old ways of doing things.

Besides the "need an odd size for a scale project" two other reasons come to mind - to have made every part of the rocket with your own hands that it is reasonable safe to do, and to be able to build something with what is on hand now, without venturing to the store or waiting for the UPS truck.

Think about the last for a minute... you could be visiting relatives and encounter some hyperactive 10yo kid and think "aha, let's build a rocket, bet we can find everything we need" and you probably can, save only dropping by walmart the next day for motors and home depot for a launch rod.

And with having so many of the classic kit plans and fin tracings online, one can really build quite a lot of things without needing to visit a specialized supplier.

Incidentally, the boxes from single-serve frozen pizzas make great material for shorter tubes and couplers - glues well, comes out crisp and hard. Some frozen entree boxes were no good though, had a plasticy layer that delaminated as I started training the curve before gluing. I wouldn't bother with toilet paper tubes and end up with some kind of mushy spiral/convolute hybrid when it's so easy to make something from recycled flat stock.

Now about those nosecones...

[QUOTE=GlueyFingers] Also, sometimes brand new technologies are brought to fruition with the aid of memories of obscure old ways of doing things. QUOTE]

I had terrible results when I tried to roll my own tubes in the mid 1970s.
You should try this technique:
http://axesworld.embarqspace.com/#/...ials/4538185476

The Eric Truax website has the best method I've found for making body tubes.
The glue is applied to the tab and allowed to dry. Then roll the cardstock tightly around a dowel or expended casings.
After you are sure everything is lined up, you use a hot, dry iron and roll it around the outside of the rolled cardstock. The iron melts the (dried) glue on the tab and seals up the body tube!

You don't need to apply pressure with the hot iron, the heat alone will melt the glue. Just roll the iron around the outside of the tube.
After removing the tube from the dowel, sometimes I let a drop of thin CA run down the inside seam. If the outside seam is open, I'll push a little white glue under the raised edge with a knife. Then I use the iron again to close it up.

I have the best luck making 1/2", 3/4" and 1" diameter tubes using 110 lb. cardstock.

__________________
Hans "Chris" Michielssen
Old/New NAR # 19086 SR

www.oddlrockets.com
www.modelrocketbuilding.blogspot.com
http://www.nar.org/educational-reso...ing-techniques/
Your results may vary
"Nose cones roll, be careful with that."
Every spaceman needs a ray gun.
Look out - I'm the Meister Shyster!

Greg, you can make cardstock tubes that are as light or lighter than commercial tubes, but they won't be as strong. You can make cardstock tubes that are as strong as commercially-made tubes, but they won't be as light in weight. Roll your own tubes that are lightweight. Roll your own tubes that are strong. Buy spiral-wound rocket tubing that is both strong and lightweight. The choice is yours.

I have done all of these things, as well as more that you haven't mentioned. During my first couple of years after resuming my rocketry hobby, I built practically nothing but homemade rockets with DIY parts. I got to be rather good at it too. I even built a high-power rocket with body tubes, couplers and a 38mm motor tube that I rolled from individual 8.5" by 11" sheets of GP 110# cardstock from Walmart. (Five layers of it for the body tubes and four layers for the couplers.) I rolled the nose cone out of poster board and made the shoulder out of cardstock. I cut all of the centering rings and bulkheads myself out of basswood (laminated in multiple layers for strength and I also built the sculpted fins (which are mounted TTW) out of laminated layers of basswood. Oh, and I hand-made the motor retention system and I created a 38mm to 29mm motor adapter out of cardstock and basswood. I used a leftover piece of Schedule 40 PVC pipe for the body tube mandrel, a 1.25" hardwood dowel that I built up with several layers of cardstock for the motor tube mandrel, and assorted objects from the pantry to help me form the other parts. At the time, I did not have and had never seen a 38mm motor, but I got the diameter of my mandrel so well nailed that when I eventually bought my first reload casing and gave it a test fit, it fit into the motor tube like a glove. Ditto for my 29mm reload casing in the adapter. I have also built 29mm and 24mm mid-power rockets out of cardstock, too.

I love building cardstock models - it's one of my other hobbies. So obviously I have nothing against the practice of using hand-made and scavenged parts. I still do it every now and then, but for the most part now, I use commercially-produced materials for my scratch-builds. That cardstock HPR I built is very sturdy and can probably handle a J motor, but it is heavy as sin (2.6" in diameter, 41" tall and over 3 lbs. in weight). And I spent several hours each night for 3 straight months building it. (I didn't own any power tools at all besides a drill at the time, so everything was cut and shaped by hand.) My total expenses for it were equivalent, if not more, (and definitely not less) than the cost of a comparable LOC or Madcow kit (and they would be lighter). Yes, I learned a great deal building it. Would I ever do it again? Probably not. I have never flown it because I am not HPR certified. I had planned to build something that I could fly in E, F and G motors, but the result is so heavy that the smallest motors that can safely lift it are an Aerotech G80T or a G76G reload.

It was fun to build that one and the others, but I would never try to do it for all of my rockets. Life is too short. But DIY rockets and me are old friends; we go way back.

One of my favorite rockets in my entire fleet is my Eric Truax-designed Carded Patriot. (I laso built a downscaled Micromaxx version of it.) I became acquainted with Eric when he was still running his High Flying Cards website and I have been following his designs as they have wandered around the web ever since. I also built a family of Greg Poehlein-designed Lemon Drops (a regular one, an 18mm upscale and a gnat-sized Micromaxx downscale. I haven't gotten to the 24mm upscale yet. ) Sadly, the original 13mm version eventually went the way of all Lemon Drops. I hope you liked it, Rocket Gods!

MK

__________________
SAM # 0011

Chris, I use the Art Applewhite/standard cardmodel method myself. Use a quality white glue (Art recommends Elmer's Glue-All, but I use Aleene's Quick-Dry Tacky Glue), spread some onto a craft stick, and use that to squeegee a thin, even layer onto the surface to be glued. Then I finish rolling the tube tight around the mandrel and finally compress it by rolling it back and forth like a rolling pin across a smooth flat surface to evenly compress the material and squeeze out any air bubbles. This produces uniform tubes with no wrinkling. The gluing and rolling/compressing parts of the process somewhat mimic what a commercial tube manufacturer does with spiral-wound tubing, but I doubt that any manual process can match the level achieved by industrial paper tube making machines.

MK

__________________
SAM # 0011

Two of my favorite glue applicators are a bamboo skewer (great for putting the glue in for the motor block) and a used gift card (I got a million used iTunes cards ) The gift card works great for squeegeeing a wide thin layer of glue!

Greg

Just curious, has anyone else tried this "dried glue / then iron" method?

The reasons I prefer it over wet glue rolling is:
I can roll the tube tightly around the dowel a few times and get it just right before applying the hot, dry iron.
No wet glue can ooze out of the top, bottom or seam when rolling.
No glue sticks to the dowel or casings inside, the new tube slides right off.
I can match up the top and bottom edges of the cardstock before ironing and making the tube - no trimming or squaring of the ends. Because I prewrap the tube and hold it in position for the iron there isn't any "stepping" of the wrap on the ends.

When I first read Eric Truax's instructions, I honestly thought: "That'll never work!"
I was sure proved wrong. On my carded rockets, the hot iron doesn't even smear the printed ink. Sometimes, the only extra step is pushing a little white glue under the seam. Let that dry and hit it with the iron again.

I probably use a little thicker coat of white glue than you would when wet rolling. It's still an even coat though.

I really feel it's a worthwhile technique for any carded modeler to try .

__________________
Hans "Chris" Michielssen
Old/New NAR # 19086 SR

www.oddlrockets.com
www.modelrocketbuilding.blogspot.com
http://www.nar.org/educational-reso...ing-techniques/
Your results may vary
"Nose cones roll, be careful with that."
Every spaceman needs a ray gun.
Look out - I'm the Meister Shyster!

It must be a technique that Eric developed pretty recently because I have never heard of it until now. So no, I haven't tried it, but it does sound interesting. I haven't needed to look for anything else, though, because I get all of the same advantages and avoid all of the problems when I use my current technique. Having the ends meet with no overlap is a matter of trimming the paper to the correct length. Preventing oozing is a matter of applying the right amount of glue (a thin coat). Getting the ends to line up is a matter of drawing an alignment line in the tube or mandrel and using it to place the wrap in straight. None of this is difficult; after all, even I can do it.

Putting a hot iron on a tube presupposes that you are using a material and have a substrate that can handle the heat. IOW, you have to be sure that the only thing that will be affected by the heat is the glue. You don't have that issue when you use wet glue.

MK

__________________
SAM # 0011

The Eric Truax instructions are dated 2005. I didn't find them until two years ago.

The first time I rolled tubes with the dry glue method, it was a lot like the first time using the "double glue" method on fins. I didn't think that would work either. It was one of those rare "Ah ha!" rocketry moments.

The cardstock I use is the cheap 110 lb. stuff from WalMart. It doesn't get burnt or even brown up with the iron set on the cotton setting. I've used it on ink jet printed paper too with no smearing or burns. It's really the best way to go when you've printed up some full color cardstock and lining everthing up is important.

Give it a try sometime, let us know how it works for you.

__________________
Hans "Chris" Michielssen
Old/New NAR # 19086 SR

www.oddlrockets.com
www.modelrocketbuilding.blogspot.com
http://www.nar.org/educational-reso...ing-techniques/
Your results may vary
"Nose cones roll, be careful with that."
Every spaceman needs a ray gun.
Look out - I'm the Meister Shyster!