Bionic Fat Man: Better, Stronger, Faster

Mr. Creosote II is well on his way to Lobster Fleet fame and fortune. Numerous improvements have been made over the first Mr. Creosote.



For a start, this is not going to be an underpowered 18mm C6 powered lard-ass. A 24mm D/E motor mount/stuffer tube means he'll actually fly. That way, instead of losing the rocket to a lawn dart situation, he can get lost in the trees, tangled in powerlines, or drift out of sight to be picked up by some stranger who probably doesn't even fly rockets but who will, nonetheless, ignore the sticker on his fin with my phone number on it.



Other improvements:

Through-the-wall fins that mount directly to the motor tube. This is much more durable than surface mounted fins, even surface mounted fins with absurdly robust epoxy clay fillets like the first Mr. Creosote had.



Basswood fins. The first Mr. Creosote had balsa fins, and one of them had to be repaired after a not-really-that-hard landing. Basswood is substantially stronger and only moderately heavier. It's a booger to cut with a hobby knife, and it takes patient sanding even with a 13,000 rpm palm sander, but it's good stuff.



I may fiberglass tape the fins rather than doing the clay fillets. Or, being me, I might do both.

I'm using 400 lb test kevlar for the shock chord base this time. I bought some because I was curious, and it's not a lot more expensive than the 75 lb test I've been using. But it is a fat braid, fitting for a fat rocket. I'll probably tie it to a few feet of quarter-inch elastic to make sure I don't have a zipper.



A zipper, if you don't know but want to, is when the shock chord cuts the body tube when the ejection charge fires. The nose cone goes screaming away and runs out of leash and whips back around, pulling the shock chord through the body tube. It's not a good thing.



Everything is cut, beveled, test-fitted, etc. I almost went ahead and mixed up some epoxy to finish construction, but three hours on my feet was enough. I've been nursing a heel spur, and while the arch support inserts I bought help, I didn't feel like spending any more time on my feet in the garage.