Waterproof rocket

[Veracity]

Hey,

I live near the water and I was wondering if any of you have tried to build waterproof rockets.

I only began thinking about it a few minutes ago....

Perhaps the body tube could be coated with something to protect it from the water.
Perhaps the recovery system would be a flotation device. The only problem there would be getting enough flotation stuff shoved down that body tube...enough to keep it afloat once it landed.

If a BT80 was used, perhaps a string of foam balls could deploy with the ejection charge....

Yeah, I'm kooky. Humor me please. If it can be done, I'll give it a shot.

[Intruder]

They make some spray silicon which is very water resistant (I've got some sprayed on a pair of my boots). Not sure of the weight it would add though, or even if it would work any count on paper. Not to mention it would be hard to get on the inside of the tube

[jadebox]

Hey,

I live near the water and I was wondering if any of you have tried to build waterproof rockets.

I only began thinking about it a few minutes ago....

Perhaps the body tube could be coated with something to protect it from the water.
Perhaps the recovery system would be a flotation device. The only problem there would be getting enough flotation stuff shoved down that body tube...enough to keep it afloat once it landed.

If a BT80 was used, perhaps a string of foam balls could deploy with the ejection charge....

Yeah, I'm kooky. Humor me please. If it can be done, I'll give it a shot.

A typical model rocket should float without doing anything special. If it doesn't get too water-logged, you can fly it again. As a kid, I launched over water a couple of times and actually recovered a rocket - once. But I don't think it's a good idea to launch a rocket without a reasonable expectation of recovering it - if only to avoid littering.

-- Roger

[barone]

Well, you need to also think about how to protect the motor from becoming water logged. Once it swells, there is a heck of a time trying to get it out without pulling the motor mount out.. :rolleyes:

[tbzep]

I don't see a way to keep the motor from getting waterlogged unless the rocket can be retrieved almost instantly. The inside of the motor where the BP burned can't be sealed, so it would soak up from there, even if the rest of the motor casing was treated.

Maybe a person could make a removable motor mount housing out of phenolic tubing, and make some throw-away mounts that can crush intstead of expanding as the motor swells into them.

A friend of mine had a rocket made of phenolic tubing that hung in a tree for a good month in some rainy weather. When it finally came down, he put in some new recovery gear and flew it again. IIRC, it's landed in a few creeks too. The rocket was all phenolic, with plywood fins and CR's, and a plastic nosecone. Epoxy was used for construction. Phenolic tubing is pretty heavy.
Unless you want to use larger composite motors, you'd probably need to find a way to treat regular tubes for the main body of the rocket and just use phenolic for the main motor mount tube housing since it's thick and pretty strong (but a little brittle).