Build Session 1: First Tube

The first build session was Sunday, January 9, 2005 at John Coker's shop. We had a big turnout and there was lots of excitement about getting started. Our first order of business was to make the tubes for the booster. (This had to be a custom tube to accomodate the Cesaroni O5000 case to be used for the flights on certified motors.)

We attempted to vacuum bag this tube on a cardboard mandrel. The tube didn't turn out well, and was basically unusable. The main problem was that the core we were using, Baltek bulker mat, was too soft and the vacuum bag flattened it out completely. This caused a lot of wrinkling of the core and outer layers.

The other problem was that the part was too hard to remove from the cardboard mandrel and the mandrel had to be destroyed in the process.