Oh, Jeeze...

Now THAT'S funny!

Great Scott! :D We're on a roll! :D

I visited Estes in 1966 with a few of my rocket buddies. We saw the wadding machine. It reminded me of a taffy puller, with arms pulling TP thru a tray of the flame proofing solution, and then under a heat lamp, and wrapped back and forth by those arms. I may have taken a picture, but most of my slides of that visit were lost. I have a few pictures of the big rocket outside HQ, and the OP ladies processing the order we placed during the visit.

We saw Mabel making motors, and the nose cone grinder cranking out balsa nose cones. A truly amazing experience. Bill Simon was our tour guide.

I too have been making my own wadding, and I think the biggest issue is that I've been using good TP. I think I need to find the really cheap stuff like we had in school as kids! I dunk an entire roll, and let it dry for a few weeks. The outer layers are crusty, and get tossed, but the inside layers are pretty good -- just hard to separate. They are much more flameproof than Estes wadding, so my quest continues to find the ideal roll of TP.

I use 20 Mule Team Borax for my flameproofing solution, which is pretty cheap. I found mine at Walmart.

I wish they would sell it in roll form. My old fingers have a hard time separating those thin folded sheets.

Steve said he'd bid on a roll if Vern got up and told the story about the machine. How much did you pay for that roll Steve? :D

That's my standard method too. It forms a sort of piston. My favorite wadding back in the day was the Centuri "cotton ball" style wadding, but today it is Estes TP wadding.

LOL yes I did. And Vern told a great story. But I ended up getting outbid on that roll. It went for $22.

The best wadding I have ever used was made by Cox. I don't know how they made it but if I didn't know better it was treated Stridex facial pads, same texture, same size and thickness. It didn't burn at all. Many times it floated back close to the launch pad and I used them over and over.

They were great for a 1/100 scale Saturn V or 1B as the Cox pads were the same diameter and round. 1 pad/sheet per launch!

Randy
http://www.vernarockets.com
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HHJHOK6
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00O14ET8K
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01CX1UPCG

Back in the day, we just used REGULAR non-flame-proof toilet paper and paper towel as 'wadding'.
Yes we would let it 'smoulder' on the way down to the ground.
If it was 'smoking' or 'aflame' when it landed, we would just stomp it out.

I put out our football field when our technology teacher decided she would save money using Kleenex. Kids flew, recovered, and went back inside unsupervised. It burned down the full length of one sideline and out past mid-field for nearly half the length. I put it out with a cardboard box I pulled out of the dumpster. I just sat it on the ground and slid it along the leading edge of the fire with my foot. Meanwhile, the AP finally got our irrigation hose hooked up and ready to spray after I got it put out. That 300 ft of commercial grade 3/4" hose was heavy and he was soaked with sweat! :chuckle: