Raptor I - How to Make a Model Rocket

This is my first instructible, so please bear with me. Feedback on what I did well and how I could do better next time would be greatly appreciated.

Hello, and welcome! My name is Rux and in this instructable, I will be making a model rocket (my first solid-propellant rocket) called Raptor I. It has the Roman numeral 1 because this is going to be a rocket series where I work on making higher impulse rockets from low-powered to mid-powered (high-powered? Probably not) rockets. Each design is focused on being better than the other, and a learning experience.

Now, back to the topic, Raptor I is 31 inches tall and has a diameter of about 1 2/4 inches, flying on a C6-7 rocket engine. This engine produces 15.30 Newtons, which is equivalent to 3.4 pounds. Uhh, yeah, I did not make this rocket on OpenRocket or any other rocket simulator, so, hope all goes well.

To build the rocket, you will need:

1. Cardstock or balsawood
2. Glue: wood glue or PVA glue (white glue)
3. Cardboard tube
4. Paint
5. Decal (optional, I made my own from printer paper, it doesn't look the best, but it works)
6. plastic straw for the launch rod, (or paper, but I found that paper is terrible for this)

To launch the rocket you will need:

1. A launch pad.
2. A rocket engine (I'm using a C6-7)
3. Igniter

For the fuselage, I just found a cardboard tube lying around and covered it with long strips of packing paper and water solute wood glue in hopes that it would make it stronger (I don't think it did. The only thing it did was make it look uglier when painting).

Also, when I was first making this, I came up with the stupid idea of making a long centring ring to go in the fuselage to make it stronger. 🤣 I wasn't sure at the time how these engines worked. But when I realized my mistake, I took it out with a pair of pliers.

The fins were made from 3 layers of cardstock and 2 pieces of paper on the outside edge. In the picture you see here I used cardboard, and I later found that cardstock is better for its lightweight and for being thinner.

I then placed the fin slots in the engine mount, gluing it into place and adding a filament of glue along the edges of them.

For the engine mount, I just took a bunch of cardboard tubes and glued them inside of each other with the engine hook until the engine fitted nice and snug, having a friction fit. This is kind of a bad idea because it is quite heavy and having done centering rings would have been a lot smarter. I then made the engine blocker to stop the engine from flying up the fuselage.

I made this rocket's nose cone out of papier mache. I don't really like this idea because it gives an ugly texture and rough surface, but I hope it works. To make the papier mache, I used water and flour.

Once the papier mache finished drying, I then made a little screw-on mechanism from a water bottle to make a payload bay for the rocket.

For painting the rocket I used some acrylic paints, and added painter's tape for the blue stripes. The type of white I used to paint my rocket was Titanium white, I just found a tube laying around so I though I would use that.

So I wanted to add some decal, to really make it pop and look cool. But later I found that decals are not all that cheap, they come to about 50 to hundreds of dollars. So, instead, I made my own by making a design and printing it on my printer and it came out amazing! After it was printed, I cut it to shape and used some Elmer's white glue and water to apply it to the rocket, and then added a protective layer of gloss to it afterwards.

I had to add some weight to the front of the nose cone, moving the weight slightly up near the nose cone, because it was not flying straight during some tests. I had to add a few pens and some sticky tack, to help make the rocket more stable.

I found that the tip of the nose cone flattened a bit (probably because of how many times I hit its nose on my roof and floor on some test flights), so I added an aluminum tip from a soda can, to help it push through the air better. To do this, you will first need a soda can and a hobby knife (or a pair of scissors). I first cut out a little square and then cut it to a circle shape so it would fit easily to the tip. After that, you now want to fold the metal to fit the nose cone and use epoxy to glue it into place. And of course paint it!

So I put the rocket on a scale and I found that the rocket is about 2 pounds. This is bad. This was mainly because of the engine mount, which is about a pound - that's quite heavy. Because of this, I might have to remake the engine mount. Lighter. To do this I can't stuff a bunch of cardboard tubes into each other.

I carefully took apart the fins (I had to use a combination of pliers) sliding the engine mount out. I then made a spiral tube for the engine to fit with some centering rings and glued it into place. I also had to replace the fins, so I cut some fins out of balsa wood sanding them down to an airfoil edge.

After waiting months to finally launch my model rocket, I took it to a park and hooked everything up. And then I hit the ignition button and.......!!!!! *dramatic duck quacking sound*

Nothing happened.

Eventually, I packed everything up and brought it home, investigating why it did not work, and either I put the ignitor in wrong (cause it was busted, probably not touching the propellant), or the wires short-circuited cause it was making contact with each other. And the next day, I took it back out again.

Success!! I was genuinely amazed by how well this rocket performed! Initially, I was worried it wouldn't fly or reach a significant altitude due to its weight, but it soared like a champ—Vrooooooooom! It was incredibly exciting!

The launch was loud, and after chasing after it, I was greeted by lots of smoke coming out of the airframe and a rather strong smell. The parachute ejected, but unfortunately, it didn’t deploy properly while in the air, which caused one of the fins to break off. Despite that, it was an incredibly fun project!

While it may not be the most visually stunning rocket you've ever seen, it certainly did a commendable job of demonstrating the principles of aerodynamic theory!

I had a lot of fun making this project and learned a lot on the way. Despite some of the setbacks of this project, it exceeded my expectations and gave me a thrilling, hands-on experience with aerodynamics and engineering. Some of the challenges I faced were weight concerns, precise fin alignment and some others, but each of these challenges was a valuable learning opportunity. Overall, this project was both exciting and educational, and I'm proud of what I accomplished! And I will continue to build more rockets like this; maybe a rocket that is able to collect data using an Arduino, or a fin-controlled rocket, but that might have to be Raptor III or IV.

Anyways, thank you very much for checking this out, and I hope you enjoyed it! Chow!!!