After my first steps into mid- and high power rocketry I very soon experienced the need for a sturdy launch pad that is able to handle the bigger rockets.
Since I have recently reconstructed the heating and water supply of my house, I had plenty of copper tubing and fittings left. Somebody in the newsgroup rec.models.rockets once mentioned that this is wonderful stuff to build a launch pad. Well, I gave it a try. And here is the outcome...
What you need:
- some copper tubing
- four caps
- four 45 deg. fittings
- three T fittings
- two wing screws
- two nuts
- some flux
- some solder
- a propane torch
- a drill and some other tools
..add launch rods of your prefered diameter and length as well as some blast deflector (eg. a cutting wheel)
A note about the tubing and fittings:
In Germany we have tubing and fittings of various diameters: 15mm, 18mm, 22mm, 28mm and more. In other countries there should be some similar sizes, but maybe measured in different (non-SI) units.
I found 15mm good for Estes-sized rockets (up to maybe E motors), 18mm is appropriate for mid power (up to G) and 22mm should be good for bigger stuff (maybe up to I/J). But you can always launch the smaller rockets from the big pad by changing the launch rod...
How to build it:
Well, have a look at the following pictures. Construction is quite straight forward. The only difficult part may be soldering the nuts to the supporting tube.
Disassembled the pad packs very well in the launch box:
Assembled it is big and sturdy enough to hoist even bigger rockets (4" diameter, 2.3m long so far) onto it (you might want to support heavy rockets with an extra rod rammed into the soil). Clamped to the earth by some hooks/herings it proofed to withstand heavy winds.
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One backdraw of the pad is the missing tilt to angle the launch rod. This is easily overcome by digging small pits for one or two of the legs to tilt the whole pad somewhat.