Bandsaw a Rocket Motor? Testing Estes Rocket Motors for Real Performance - ElementalMaker

Using the arduino thrust test stand to see how Estes motors perform.
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[@ElementalMaker]

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[@ProfaneGod]

Found an interesting little game you might like its called The powder toy and you can perform all kinds of scientific experiments by designing engines to just mixing elements etc.

[@johannesdesloper8434]

The data I have on the D12-5 from Estes is a total impulse of 17 Ns so you could say it's righ on the money. What I do not understand is that the C6-5 should have a total burn time of 1.7 seconds and yours is much longer. My data also say 10Ns total impulse on the C6-5. If I'm not mistaken the delay charge should be the time after motor burnout and heard that 1 second +/- should be an acceptable tolerance, by Estes, of the delay charge . Why it is also important to me? I have a model with separating boosters and this data should really ruin a succesfull flight with the C6 propellant block as a booster.

[@johannesdesloper8434]

I watched the video again in slow motion and it looks like you have a burn time of around 2 seconds on the C6-5... could be something wrong with your graph . Ow btw.. you are one of my favourite channels.

[@johannesdesloper8434]

Ah I also have the same table as you have from Estes and that also says 20Ns on the D12... so 2 different data sheets here :( on the C6-5 the data is identical.

[@xarin42]

I'm disapointed you weren't calling it the D Rocket

[@cavemaneca]

Honestly, if you want good quality slow motion for "cheap" your baseline is probably the Cronos. That'll set you back at least $3k though.

[@TechGorilla1987]

I figure with over 100K, that Davis is willing to lend out an older model or something.

[@TreHazenF]

I would like to see you build a slow-mo camera yourself :P

[@WolfsBlackRose]

I gotta say, love the caveat to "Dumbest thing I've ever done *slight pause* In here"

[@chemicalcorrosion]

Rough surface finish on that cross section cut. Needs a good flame polish.

[@ElementalMaker]

Lmao I'll get right on that!

[@fanridersclub1306]

If it wasnt so rough it would caught fire. I can’t belive you have done that.

[@BloodAsp]

Can't complain about a hand full of C's, or double D's either way!

[@jamesclark2372]

Yes a handful of c's and adouble d are essential for good health

[@N3kr0n15]

Nice

[@walkingcontradiction223]

I can't disagree, after all they're both vitamins... Coincidence? I think not.

[@RealDeanWinchester]

C-cells are almost never used, and D-cells are on the way out.

[@walkingcontradiction223]

@@RealDeanWinchester What? Dude you conversationed into the wrong boobs, or whatever we were talking about... Now I'm confused more than my baseline confusededness. Edit: Turned a we we into a we were, by magic!

[@stephenwatts2879]

Love your videos! My father was a Rocket Engine Scientist, Minuteman & ICBMs in the 50s-early 1980s. Cold War Days... before that was the B-52 wings to fuselage connection. He had me Reloading solo at 9 then backpack to 13,000 peaks solo all 4 seasons with a day pack fishing pole and a Remington bolt action 22 LR. Live off the land. I was lucky to had a father as he! Mother? She was raised on a real Homestead in N. Saskatchewan.... she knew to! Hahahahaha thanks for your work!

[@daniellassander]

When i go to hobby lobby my girlfriend says she always wants to look at things we dont have at home and what she needs, and she is always looking at the power tools even though we have lots of them, i cant figure it out :P

[@ElementalMaker]

Power tools at hobby lobby?! Man I must have missed that section!

[@BloodAsp]

A treat especial!

[@matthewellisor5835]

Yeah but, Focus You Fack!

[@chris993361]

I like having the data in there. It was a good mix of burning rockets and the data. Good work!

[@ElementalMaker]

Thank you Chris!

[@JohnLeePettimoreIII]

For someone with Double-D's, you sure have a deep voice (and a very pronounced Adam's Apple).

[@thetransformatorium7980]

This was fun! I always wanted to build a test stand for these motors when I was a kid, but the rocketry phase of childhood gave way to the radio controlled airplane phase before it happened. By the way, not all of us have the attention span of a meth addled chipmunk, so please do include data and theory as you see fit. I don't think you will chase all your viewership away with a couple graphs and equations. Cheers! 👍👍👍

[@chemistryofquestionablequa6252]

You need to combine the rockets with the RC planes, actually firing rockets from one is really satisfying.

[@thetransformatorium7980]

@@chemistryofquestionablequa6252 Yeah, we did that too. Good fun, but very hard to hit anything! We also put bomb drop clips, fins, and little nose cones on 12 gauge shotgun shells. We would take out all the pellets, of course, and load the empty shell with all sorts of "energetic" stuff. It sounds like we would have been good friends! Cheers!

[@oryxr5354]

Hey, I really enjoy your videos, and they helped me get into making rocket motors, it's really cool to have someone like you to learn us things we don't really get anywhere else, keep on making these videos, and congratulations on your little girl, hopefully she will also like rockets as much as you do in a few years. Stay safe and happy diaper changing

[@landonshults5239]

Sick video man, also cool to see the data all modeled out like that. Keep up the content

[@chipko]

Lol, i paused your video as soon as you showed the engines and went on to say what i used to do with them and a few tales. I restarted and you did it too! :D

[@sinfulf4i]

im always impressed with C's and D's but then you mention DD's and im hypnotized... wait what were you talking about . lol

[@KB0parsi]

Love it. Keep making videos. Just found your channel and this is awesome

[@AKSURFS]

That was really superb … It’s always great to see some wonderful content ✨😊

[@BruteLem0n]

Love your videos man! Always great to see a new one posted. Take care!

[@ElementalMaker]

Thank you!

[@klausziegler60]

I like how agile and entertaining your channel is. I would like to see things in more detail, though. But, anyway, it is very interesting . Congratulations

[@markbledsoe1664]

I live for this channel definitely one of my favorite

[@ElementalMaker]

Thank you Mark!

[@dcallan812]

Its difficult to find a bad day for testing thrust. Nice job, sir.

[@danielchandler15]

Jolly good show! Good to hear from ya!!

[@theoriginalrabbithole]

We used to launch HUNDREDS of Estes rockets and ones we just started making from stock cardboard tubing, fins and cones at the nearby golf course in the mid to late 70s. We had an awesome hobby shop in town back then and as for the custom-made rockets? 5 stages? Possible but it'll break apart every time before you get to 6 stages, unless you build something really wide, trust me on that. lol Btw, I found you from a shout-out on NightHawkInLight's channel. Fair to say, he's real grateful for all the help he got from you on the synthetic ruby experiments. Keep up the good work! *Liked&Subscribed

[@patwicker1358]

Love the smell of black powder in the morning :-)

[@pirobot668beta]

The ignitor well does make a short progressive burn, but then it goes to end-burner. Core cavities erode over time, this is why the 'V' flame front turned into a flat one. Great data recorder!

[@billytisme]

I was just as amazed by the thrust curves when I did this a few weeks ago! So much so I posted my own video of it

[@secondhandlyon2603]

Yay! You didn't burn the house down. I always wanted to see what those looked like on the inside.

[@TheVexCortex]

Having seen these things outright explode on the launchpad, I did not expect the thrust curve to look that nice.

[@cavemaneca]

Cutting open highly flammable things? I'm in! Also, Hobby Lobby is great for cheap glassware...

[@ElementalMaker]

Ohhh like chem glassware? I didn't see any of that there. Or you just mean using their everyday glass as substitute chem glass?

[@cavemaneca]

@@ElementalMaker Just as a cheap substitute. There's a lot of different shapes and volumes that are good for storing various things that need to be stored in glass containers. They also run a sale a few times a year where you get 50% all glassware there.

[@hamm6035]

Way cool 😎. Good information is important to figure out if I can drop it in Mary's backyard 😀 👍.

[@stevehonour9668]

Best vid on the net LOVE IT

[@ThatPhilBurgGuy]

You have huge AvE vibes and I love it.

[@stumccabe]

I love graphs and data and things that go whoosh or boom!

[@virality365]

Your data presented was tolerated well thanks!!

[@kaliumnitraat]

Hes back at it again

[@scrappydoo7887]

You remind me so much of myself it's unreal lol You know for a fact, out loud, that something is a dumb idea but ya have a bit of a giggle and crack on with the job lol

[@scrappydoo7887]

Those subtitles/corrections are excellent 🤣

[@Jonathan.D]

A plasma cutter would give you a much smoother cross-section. Well... It would be fun for us to watch. Love the videos! 👍

[@jimdavis1576]

ahhh yes. I remember as a kid cutting open one of those round smoke bombs, and putting it on the end of a C engine with rubber cement. Lighting it off and the instant horror of a rocket engine flying haphazardly into the neighbors yard then letting out a plume of blue smoke. Thankfully the neighbor wasn't to mad about the dead grass where it burned up, but boy was that a lesson in aerodynamic stability.

[@Aaron48219]

EM, I'm probably about the same age at 44. Iirc, the remote ignitor switches took 4AA batteries. I also remember not having those little "butt plugs" to hold the ignitors in. We either crossed our fingers they wouldn't fall out or we were smart enough to remember to bring some tape.

[@RangerOfTheOrder]

Brings back a lot of my childhood. I'd smash the tubes with a hammer and use the blackpowder in my little cannon

[@officermeowmeowfuzzyface4408]

When I was 10 I built and fired many Estes rocket kits, figured out on my own to use a ripped corner of tissue paper and form a ball with it that fits the nozzle behind the squib, long before they came up with those plugs. Keeps the ignition up against the propellant and also retains the wiring without tape.

[@ElementalMaker]

I used to do the same thing and it worked like a charm, I always kept a bamboo skewer in my launch box to really shove the wadding in there. Great minds something something

[@bhutwheyttherismor86]

That was a nice boom.

[@TerryLooft]

How is that new shop coming along? I miss the videos, I enjoy them very much.

[@mbmurphy777]

Rocket Data? Never boring!

[@hamhawk4027]

You have the best videos! Thank you very much.

[@ElementalMaker]

Thank you!

[@scottcortus9590]

I had to be eating a damn banana when you said slobby knobby! 🤣🤣

[@Enjoymentboy]

Brother if you've worked your way up to double D's during the pandemic we need to have a chat about your diet. And watching the ignition brought me back to my (mis-spent) youth and these motors. I used to salvage the battery packs from polaroid film packs for my ignition box. If I recall they made 6v and they had a great shelf-life and were basically garbage so no problem in getting them after someone used up their pack of film.

[@GlennHamblin]

Great video, thanks.

[@MrKclo42112]

very cool I should send you a couple more to test

[@seeigecannon]

If you are looking for something to do with the other engine half, you could clamp it to a sheet of Pyrex and ignite it and watch it burn. It would have some weird internal geometries, so it wouldn't quite be 1:1, but it would still be neat.

[@chemistryofquestionablequa6252]

There's a video of exactly that here on youtube, can't remember who made it, but it shouldn't be too hard to find.

[@tomjohns8498]

Hi from the UK 🇬🇧 there I was thinking to have a good KZbin evening normally includes a dash of giggles 😃 seasoned with a touch of knowledge. This is where you come in !!! But sadly another month of zero Elemenal giggling knowledge, what's the world coming to ?

[@ElementalMaker]

Wrapping up a video today. Should only take a couple days to edit. Sorry for the break in videos, I had major house renovations to do and we also had our first baby. What a whirlwind!

[@tomjohns8498]

@@ElementalMaker congratulations on your 👶 baby 🥳💝🎊🎈🎁

[@jason0870]

@@ElementalMaker Congrats on the baby and glad to hear a vid is on its way.

[@kevin...-]

Hey man just checking in on you, haven't seen a video in a while but I hope your doing well

[@jondepinet]

if you have just one or two projects in mind, contact Destin at Smarter Every Day and set up a collab. he has the highspeed and the interest in this sort of project.

[@PassifloraCerulea]

I have continued to launch Estes rockets as an adult, but it's been a while. I've got several kits I need to build. Growing up, our shop teacher taught us to pack the igniter in with a pinch of ejection wadding, which worked great. The plastic plugs are a little different but work well. Lots of people had trouble had trouble with igniter reliability, but with care I've launched 2- and 3-engine clusters maybe a dozen times with only one half-ignition. One thing I always wanted to try is a manually operated ejection using a radio for RC planes. Maybe even two stage for a high altitude rocket. But what I should really be doing is getting into high power rocketry. Side note: the needle nose pliers on your bench look nearly identical to one I inherited from my great grandfather. Crescent brand, "Made U.S.A." (natch' 😉) and has "CRESTOLOY" on the back. I love it.

[@BensWorkshop]

Nice tests, cheers.

[@Friedbrain11]

I remember my old science alb kit and it had stuff in it you won't get at all now in a kit. the kits now are so anemic. I used to be an Estes rocketeer with a couple friends. D engine was the last engine I used. Never had igniters like that when I was in rockets. we got a nichrome wire with a little coating on ti and we had to bend it to shape and used a toothpick broken off to hold it in place. Half the time the igniters failed LOL used the D for the Big Bertha rocket. Yes Estes has some decent motors. Would love to get back into shooting rockets again. That is in the plans :)

[@ab_ab_c]

Very nice work! I loved the data presentation portion of the vid--it's not boring--but you could have maded it a bit shorter with a bit more prep--we can pause the vid to look at the numbers if you ensure the images are in focus or if you include links to pics in the comments section. I'd also be interested in seeing what the burnout was inside the spent tubes. If you could saw a C & a D tube in half & add them as still images to the end of your vid (or as links in your comments)--that would be good. I have a feeling that they don't need to use such thick tubes--but, I could be wrong. Perhaps they are a bit overkill for safety purposes. Keep up the good work! Thanks for sharing!

[@Youdontwannaknow..]

Dude you should do a quick shorts video trying these hollowed like sugar rockets!

[@TechGorilla1987]

@1:15 - Unrolling fireworks - When I was 12, we lived in Hawaii. At that time (1981), fireworks of ALL kinds were legal in the state. There was a store called "Holiday Mart" like K-Mart. During large holidays, the store removed the ENTIRE toy section of the store and replaced it with fireworks. I'm talking 10,000 count rolls of firecrackers on pallets. My dad was a HUGE kid and would spend lots of money on goods. Fast forward - I would accumulate and unroll everything I could get my hands on for as long as it held my attention then I would light it on fire. I'm lucky I still have all my fingers. There were several HUGE mushroom clouds out on the lanai. I used to rig Revell models with strings of crackers to simulate battle. It was the home of Pearl Harbor after all.

[@RobertAltenburg]

We used to slit them with an x-acto knife and unwrap them to get the gunpowder. One kid in elementary school put one in a vice and tried to cut it open with a hacksaw. He came in to school the next day with his eyebrows burnt off.

[@justinbanks2380]

Love the comments on screen for 'great guess ...' Nothing wrong with Cs and D's! Lol

[@NicolasBana]

Well for a slomo camera, the Kronos is a safe bet if you have 3 or 4 thousand canadian kopecks, and they're made right in canaderp ! If you got a bit less beef, the Sony RX10 II or the Sony DSC-RX100 IV might be worth looking into, just found out about them, can doo approx 1000fps max in full HD, still a grand though. Great vidja as always !

[@JoeParkerAndThePower]

That's great! Don't suppose you've got the code up on GH at all?

[@deleathleye]

Nice cross section! Can you encase rocket engines like that in epoxy? For display purposes

[@quantumlab9130]

One of the more affordable high speed cameras I know of is the Chronos high speed camera. Also I believe that some Samsung phones can actually record up 960fps I’ll be it at a low resolution but still adequate enough for some applications.

[@kenwolfe6093]

Lol...reloading press and propane torches in the background and cutting a rocket engine in the foreground. Party Time!!

[@Basement-Science]

For high speed cameras I only know about the Chronos 1.4, but then you probably already know that one. Not exactly cheap either, but very capable at least.

[@user-no8xn8pd8c]

Hi, I'm an amateur who studies 'everclear propellent'. I want to know how to calculate the burning rate when the internal pressure of the chamber is 6 Mpa. Can you help me?

[@cwald8901]

I use a Samsung phone for slow mo with rockets. Ever since the galaxy s7 they support a "super slow mo" mode that records at 720p 960fps for up to half a second. It won't get the whole burn duration but for something you can get cheep on ebay, it's not bad.

[@zippywalker6406]

I would like to see how these thrust curves compare to a DIY engine of the same size.

[@dhook4259]

It's been a while since we've seen any new content here on KZbin. Just wanted to make sure all is good.

[@ElementalMaker]

Still kickin! Just had a baby girl, so that plus the house renovations have taken up all my usual workshop time. Will be getting some content coming again soon

[@dhook4259]

Congrats on the baby girl! That's awesome! Thanks for the reply. I'm looking forward to the videos kickin back in. Take care and enjoy the time with your baby girl

[@JohnLeePettimoreIII]

ah yes... the good ol' days when you could get your 8 year old a chemistry set containing a big jug of Plutonium Tri-Cyanide, a large can of Lead paint, and an "experiment" that resulted in Anthrax spores that had pink eye and head lice. damn man... those were the days.

[@JamesJohnson-kw9gh]

Hey its great to see your still around ,have you got another channel or internet link so we can stay in touch ?

[@ElementalMaker]

Hey James, I have the ElementalMakerB channel, and I'm also on LBRY/Odysee. I also post stuff to Instagram pretty regularly

[@nathandean1687]

did u freeze them rockets first. as other channels have done.

[@g.d.8065]

The chemistry sets Thames & Kosmos makes seem pretty decent.

[@ElementalMaker]

Those dont look too bad actually. Glad to see some decent kits are available, but nothing compares to the old ones that had some real dangerous stuff in them. As a kid I found an old set probably from the 60's at a yardsale that had all kinds of great chemicals and glassware, including uranium ore. Look up the HMS beagle heirloom chemistry set, that was the only great modern kit, and sadly they are out of business.

[@malelpn37]

There is an interesting publication and you have to get the original one in order to get all of the compositions. It is called Henleys book of 20th century formulas, it covers everything that you would ever possibly imagine to do or make

[@PatGilliland]

60+ years experience in making rocket engines shows up as Estes consistency.

[@derektomassi9371]

Just wanna start off by saying I love your videos please keep them coming I was making a few sugar rockets and then I bought some tubes to make bottle rockets can I use the sugar fuel in the 2 inch with a quarter inch diameter inside for fuel I tested one but it doesn’t seem like it does much

[@ElementalMaker]

Unfortunately at that size the sugar propellant probably won't work all that well. Compressed black powder is probably the way to go there. I never had much luck with little bottle rockets either

[@derektomassi9371]

Thank you so much for getting back to me I appreciate it black powder it is

[@waterchildtera]

I drilled from the nozzle halfway down so it core burns ! Quadruple the impulse !

[@WhereWhatHuh]

So, a couple of questions: 1.) These were black powder (KNO3+C+S) .... how does this thrust curve compare to the equivalent grain of rocket candy (KNO3+C12H22O11)? 2.) In the grains you make with rocket candy, you have a complete tunnel through the center, whereas these just have a small notch at the bottom... What is the advantage in the full tunnel?

[@KeenanTims]

It's no Cronos, but Sony ZV1 can do 960fps @1080 for relatively cheap. And it's just a great vlog camera anyway.

[@M0JHN]

Try chronos slow motion cameras cheaper than the phantoms. I remember back in day their was a company called experilab in South Africa where I grew up, they sold kits to hammer your own rocket engines together. Aluminium rod with brace and cardboard blanks had to make our own mixes would be a good starting point to mess with those ratios. Esties were quite expensive all the way down south for us then. Now in the UK it’s whole different ball game here.

[@treelineresearch3387]

I drilled out the propellant grain to turn it back into BP. With a power drill. Never had one go off, but in retrospect that wasn't very smart on the part of 10 year old me.

[@trollmcclure1884]

can you try and make a reverse plated diamond lapping plate? That would be awesome

[@MichaelLloyd]

Where did you go?

[@yanovich3234]

Loving the grams of thrust thing..

[@tristan183]

You still around? Miss you :(

[@evan9831]

What happene if you drill a core burning style on one of these black rocket engine???

[@ElementalMaker]

I'd imagine a boom would be the result but I may have to test that

[@ganjalogic]

I think a smartphone is probably your best option for high speed video, probably a Samsung or Sony. If you don't need/want a phone upgrade, you can import one of the cheaper ones from China that doesn't have good US band support, like Xiaomi/Huawei/Honor/Realme. Though it seems like many of them interpolate video for the highest framerates, newer models might still be competitive given the price. Real hardware 480fps should be trivial to find, 960fps looks available on select models, and some models might even have actual 1920fps modes (though actual capabilities are hard to confirm).

[@pirobot668beta]

Lots of CATO's (Catastrophic failure at Take Off) can be traced to motors that have gotten damp (black powder LOVES moisture) and then dried. Cracks in the fuel grain...more flame-fronts than the casing can deal with...BOOM. I was getting ready for Certification with an I-class re-loadable [Dr. Rocket] motor when September 11th happened; all fuel became unavailable, all permits cancelled. I regret choosing to not continue building rockets.

[@RichardCranium321]

Was I the only one who got additional pucker factor when seeing the band saw push rod was metal? I was worried it'd spark when hitting blade, but wasn't sure about material...

[@matelotjim9035]

I probably should have said the you might have been able to desensitised the rocket motor by soaking it in oil. Works with cordite... But Where's the fun in that, some exothermic bandsaw action sounds fun

[@Skyliner_369]

If you're willing to pay prosumer prices, you should look into the chronos series cameras from kron tech. They're cheap enough to be the action cameras (go pros) of the high speed science world.

[@chemistryofquestionablequa6252]

You can strap those to a piece of dowel and pack the empty cavity at the top with flash powder or glue a pill bottle full of fp to it for a truly hellacious bottle rocket. I know you have KClO3and aluminum powder...

[@ElementalMaker]

Oh I know a thing or two about doing exactly that 😁. I just highly recommend staying away from chlorate for flash, that mix has claimed so many fingers. Perchlorate is so much more stable and just about the same price

[@imadethisforposts]

Tech ingredients put out a video a month or so ago about a good for the money slow mo camera.

[@tayro7265]

The parachute ejection stage has another better use. If you make each motor stage detachable and place consecutive motors 4 to 6mm apart the first stage will ignite the second stage and detach itself and so on. Estes has a chart telling you what motors are compatible for multi-stage use.

[@ElementalMaker]

I'm surprised they can get a reliable second stage ignition with how quick that separation must be. Very impressive stuff! I would have imagined some fusing or priming of the second stage motor would be required

[@tayro7265]

@@ElementalMaker No but the trick is in the gap between engines 4_6mm and surface tension between stages. Tight but not tooo tight. You know...

[@wyvrnres]

hooray another rocket video!

[@TheBackyardChemist]

The Chronos cameras are a good bet for a real HS cam. But they are still pricy so you might want to look into older used iPhones, I think they added some manner of HS fairly early so those old models might be cheap on the used market.

[@rodneyatleson2861]

I ran across a gun bluing recipe using sodium hydroxide and potassium nitrate. But I can't find anything that says how much qty. Can you shed some light on this?

[@ElementalMaker]

I came across that as well some time ago! Been wanting to give it a try!