John A. Wilke

Warren. My modifications are meant for the average builder........ Again This has all been working for me. I don't have fins raining down on me and I feel I push my rockets pretty hard. Until I have ...

Thanks for sharing that, Tony - I always learn something when I look over your shoulder. Some questions: - is your "wet cat hairball" fillet the only fillet you apply? earlier on it looked like you ...

Long, but interesting. Seemed like the first and last 7-8 minutes were the best...

Sean, what page was the rocket on? I didn't see it - but I didn't sort through all 142 pages of photos 🙂 Congrats!

WHAT A PRETTY ROCKET! Ed, is that the Madcow BB2? I'm not normally a big scale modeling geek, but the MC Black Brant II is the real deal. My hunch is that is what we are looking at in your photo? ...

Hi everyone, How about..... Beef up your most forward centering rings (group of 3 for great surface contact), set two 1/4-40 eye-bolts, one on each side of the motor tube. Dead center, should leave ro...

The epoxy can (and does) also change the physical properties of the Kevlar. I'll bet if you soaked the flat Kevlar in epoxy and took it out later you could actually break it in two - it becomes very ...

I'll stand by my statement - don't glue in webbing as your shock cord anchor - regardless of the material. In a 4" bird with a 54mm motor mount you can easily use a forged eyebolt and washer or a u-bo...

For a rocket like the Nike, you have more options - in the case above, the centering ring centers a 54mm motor in a 4" tube, so there is nearly 2" of ring to tie into. I'd probably put an eyebolt or ...

Epoxying Kevlar is NOT a good idea. It gets brittle, and it *will* break eventually. I always tie into the motor's forward closure, and I go out of my way to design my rockets to allow for that. If t...

Greywolves. I friction fit all of my motors in min dia rockets. Here is a link to a 5" P that was friction fitted. Bingo. You have relatively few options for motor retention in a min dia rocket. Ta...

Batman, here's the info on the Intimidator 5, as is, just buy it from JW. 😉 Indeed - my price is about $90 better than the one in the link above (even after you pay sales tax). I have one left 8)

I've friction fit L's (and K's) probably 20 times. The longer motor lends itself well to friction fitting - more area for the tape to fit to. FWIW, I've friction fit 75mm M's several times as well. ...

Question John, the tail cone that comes with the Kestrel, does it have motor retetion built in? locking snap ring? Thanks The CTI 54mm loads have an aft closure, which is a ring that is screwed onto...

Only Tony could take a motor that is this long and STILL cut 5" out of the rocket. His motor is 7.5" longer than the Pro54 6G-XL that came with the kit... and he is cutting 5" out of the rocket lengt...