24 replies to this topic

[BurlHorse]

I would not try the last formula in the last post. Rubber based binder of polybutadi?ne acrylic acidacrylonitrile can grow legs - chase you around the lunching site and eat you before taking off.

I kindly asked you not to tell anyone about the stumps I call legs.......Geez...ROTFL Guess thats what I get for making this stuff at the lunching site....Damn Bologna&swiss / polybutadiene Contamination....hahahahaha

Regards, Stay Green,
Bear

[jcow]

I have only just started rocketry, and i cannot get hold of kno3, but have made a couple of good rockets using 50% sodium chlorate 40% sucrose(icing sugar), 10% sulphur powder. yeah i know its dodgy but i do not grind chlorate with sulphur i use powdered sulphur and add it when the chlorate is powdered.


some guys use chlorate propellant in the same mixture ratios as kno3 propellant. i find this type of mixture leaves large amounts of residue and burns to slow for rocketry.

[Richard H]

Why on earth are you doing this when potassium nitrate is readily available in the UK?

[Phoenix]

Why do you add sulphur? Presumably you know that making a rocket from sodium chlorate and sugar alone is a very bad idea already, but adding sulphur makes things twice as bad.

You should spend a significant amount of time reading every piece of quality information on the subject you can find and afford before you start making fireworks, and should be experienced in handling tamer compositions such as black powder before moving onto chlorate comps (which are really limited to stars/coloured fires and burst charges - NOT rockets).

Please, if you must experiment without reading the proper material first, take my word for it, the composition and usage you describe will lead to an accident. Potassium nitrate is very easy to get, at a price, and some searching will turn up several very cheap sources too. Potassium nitrate propellants are much, much safer to make, handle and store. They are also significantly cheaper, and in practice will give much better, more consistant rockets.

Finally, try not to be put off by this response. If you are unsure as to the safety of a procedure, and are unable to find reliable answers from existing sources, then please do ask on the forum. Any of us would be willing to answer an obvious question if it's going to stop someone from getting hurt.

[jcow]

thanks for the advice,

i have gone off the idea of chlorate based rocket propellants.

i have looked a garden chemicals for kn03, but is'nt a tenner for half a kilo a bit expensive?
also, does anyone know if you can get kn03 from garden centers, such as homebase etc?

thanks

[broadsword]

I have recently been trying EVERYWHERE close to me for KN03 but to no avail! I Spoke to the garden centre and they phoned all their suppliers and nobody can get hold of any, my mum is friends with the local pharmacist and he looked on his computer and a few months it was red listed and now NOTHING! Nobody can get hold of it! And for obvious reasons to!

But try: Garden Direct Because Garden Chemicals is very expensive! And their Sulphur is 'Flowers of Sulphur' and their KN03 isn?t powder it is more like granulated sugar!

BTW the mods will probably tell you that this has been talked about numerous times before in the past and searching will find these answers!

Edited by broadsword, 25 November 2004 - 04:23 PM.

[KingVinny]

I can get 99% pure lab grade KNO3 powder for ?6.40 per kg here in the UK. Does anyone know of a cheaper supplier for the same quality? Or is that as good as it gets?

[al69]

I can get 99% pure lab grade KNO3 powder for ?6.40 per kg here in the UK. Does anyone know of a cheaper supplier for the same quality? Or is that as good as it gets?

yes. How about www.gardendirect.co.uk their sulphur and KNO3 are very pure and it wont make a lot of difference in performance whether you use this or that kno3, so use the gardendirect stuff.

Oh and A2 why dont you use chlorate/charcoal as a rocket fuel. something like 70/30 or 80/20 would be a good start.

Edited by al69, 23 December 2004 - 11:27 AM.

[paul]

The problem with chlorate/charcoal rockets is that you shouldn?t ram them. And not everybody has a press @ home.
As we all know, ramming chlorate comps. is not the best idea :)


So, other, potassium nitrate based comps would be better I think.

And KNO3 is really really cheap stuff. 36?/25kg. It?s comparable to the garden direct stuff I think. Labgrade is not needed anywhere :)

Edited by paul, 23 December 2004 - 12:47 PM.

[raketpeter]

1 - Forget ANY chlorate salt in ANY rocket propellant composition. Disregarding the safety issues - it's just not going to work. Problem: pressure exponent tends to be > 1 => no stable chamber pressure possible (translates to explosion). See
www.vro.be
and search for chlorate - first link is a story of how 150g (not much!) of NaClO3 propellant detonated making a one meter (!!!!) crater.

2 - Forget anything that has to do with with any sulfur compound and any chlorate!
(RTFM)

3 - If you want to make candy propellant read Nakka's site:
www.nakka-rocketry.net
This is most likely the best source of info on candy propellant.

Peter