John Deere

[John Brohm]

With a Forum like this, I would think this would be inevitable. The rocket has about 25 flights on it (mostly Rocket Vision E15s), but has been recently re-finished and retired. I guess it's been put out to pasture now.

John

[Doug Sams]

John,

Great paint job. Suhweet! How'd you come up with the JD logo?

Was it originally a Maxi Alpha?

Is that a Beta in the bag?

BR,
Doug

[John Brohm]

Doug;

The John Deere is a Maxi Alpha clone. It's survived the 25 flights mainly because it's beefed up in a few places. The fins are 1/8" ply TTW, and are locked in place with 1/16" ply CRs. Overbuilt? perhaps, but I've had two mishaps that the John Deere has survived because of this construction. The first was a failed parachute deployment - rocket came in sideways (horizontal), buried itself halfway up the leading fin; no damage (paint was scratched a bit of course). The second mishap occurred when one of my trusty Rocket Vision E15s cato'ed just a few milliseconds into the launch. Split the exposed portion of the motor mount tube, but the split ended at the aft plywood centering ring (easily fixed). So while it's not the lightest rocket I've ever built, it certainly has been one of the most rugged!

The paint is Krylon, the JD decal has a bit of a story. While wondering how I was going to come up with a decal, my family and I happened to be visiting a Six Flags park in Ohio. Serendipitously, I happened to see a metal John Deere sign nailed up on the outside of one of the maintenance sheds. Happened to have my digital cameral with me, so I took a photo of the sign, trying to minimize as much parallax as possible. With my graphics software, I cut the deer image out of the photo, cleaned up the edges and then added the text with as close of font match as I could find. Printed it out with my ALPS printer on a waterslide decal sheet, and voila!

Yep, that's a Beta in the bag; trying to decide what to do with it (build or box, I mean).

I'm hoping to get down to see you guys again soon; I'll give you a heads up if things work out.

John

[Tau Zero]

With a Forum like this, I would think this would be inevitable. [snip] I guess it's been put out to pasture now.Beavis and Butt-head "down on the farm":

"He's talking about a John Deere..."
"...being 'put' out to pasture."
(TOGETHER) "Heh heh, heh heh."
"--That was *cool.*"


"You Know You're a Farm Kid When..."

I was in my local Fred Meyer last weekend, and I noticed some green T-shirts with white lettering which read, "got green?" I immediately thought, "JOHN DEERE!" :D

Imagine the mild tinge of disappointment when I foundnd other shirts on the same rack with seemingly unrelated sayings like, "Kiss me, I'm Irish!" :(


Cheers,

--Jay

[Doug Sams]

> I was in my local Fred Meyer last weekend, and I noticed some green T-shirts with white
> lettering which read, "got green?" I immediately thought, "JOHN DEERE!"

I was San Jose a couple weeks ago, and was asking my Pakistani colleague about
the turbans worn by those from the Middle East. He said some are worn as a religious
tradition, and others are worn merely as hats much like baseball caps in the US.

My colleague's name is Moosa, and I tease him that it's Pakistani for Bubba. Anyway,
this image came to mind while we were discussing it:

http://home.flash.net/~samily/stuff/turban2.jpg

<vbg>

Doug