Casting my own propellant has always held interest for me since I’ve gotten back into the hobby.  Early in high school, I had a science teacher that taught me how to make sugar motors and I’d always wanted to expand on that start.

For the past couple of Red Glare’s, I’d been attending a lecture on creating propellants given by Ben Russell.  The one hour lecture covered the basics of what was required to get started in, as TRA likes to call it - research.  When I found that he gave a formal day long class on the subject, I anxiously awaited a class that would work with my teaching schedule for the semester.

Just prior to NERRF, Ben held a class at Hanger 11 hobbies which fit my schedule.  The class size was small, with around 4 students total.  The morning portion of the class was in a lecture format.  Ben gave us well-prepared binders that contained all the slides and notes from the lecture as well as other material on Burn-sim and additional topics.  Lecture topics ranged from safety, equipment, location, chemicals as well as propellant properties and characterization.  Just before lunch we ran through the procedure that we’d use to cast our motors.

After lunch (provided by Hanger 11 - great pizza!), we got to work making our motors.  Ben provides 38mm Tru-Core casting sets as part of the tuition for the course.  The formula used is a well characterized formula called ‘Tiger Tail’.  Students have the option to create either two 2-grain motors or one 4-grain motor.  Since most of my dual-deploy rockets are a bit heavier, I went with the 4 grain option.  Ben, along with wife Elaine ran us through the step by step process of mixing our chemicals, always paying attention to make sure we were doing it safely.  After the mixing was done, it was time for packing!  We patiently made little strings of propellant and carefully tamped them down into the liners.  After adding the Tru-Core end caps and doing a thorough clean-up, we were done!  Ben and Elaine gave us some parting advice and we all left for our respective trips home.

While I separated the grains from the mandrels later the next day, I didn’t do much for the rest of the summer.  Finally, as Red Glare XI rolled around, I knew it was time to fly.  I cut the grains using a fine-bladed hacksaw and a miter box.  The grains fit perfectly in the Brand-X case that I purchased from Tru-Core.  The motor was estimated to be an I-171 or so.

I flew the motor at RG XI in my level 2 rocket, Second Chance.  The flight went perfectly, hitting just shy of 3000 feet.  The motor had little smoke with an orange flame.  I’ll admit to being a bit nervous, but everything went exactly as planned.

I wish I could say I’ve built more motors since then, but unfortunately family issues intruded and kept me busy through the winter.  I’m hoping to attend Ben’s class again this Spring (just to brush up) and begin mixing in earnest this summer.

I highly recommend Ben’s class - if you want to learn how to mix your own, or just learn more about how our motors work, it’s a great value.  Maybe I’ll see you there!