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Old 08-26-2015, 09:32 PM
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Gus Gus is offline
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Default A visit behind the scenes at eRockets / Semroc

I stopped by Semroc / eRockets today and Randy gave me a great tour. He was extremely gracious about lifting the curtain a bit and sharing what is going on with bringing Semroc back online.

First of all, Semroc and eRockets are now located in beautiful Dayton, Ohio, just 15 minutes from the National Museum of the United States Air Force (as good as the Smithsonian). erockets is located right near where I-70 and I-75 cross. Randy really encourages visitors. While I was there someone from Louisville, passing through on business also stopped (shopped) by. And anyone planning to attend NARCON next year, eRockets/Semroc plans to hold an open house during the event.

Forgot to get a picture of the front of the building and Randy's office (about 100 built rockets in there). First pic is of Randy's peg board of all the Semroc rockets he hopes to have available by Christmas. Look at the picture carefully and you will see several that have not been available for some time now and command big bucks on eBay.
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Last edited by Gus : 08-26-2015 at 10:38 PM.
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Old 08-26-2015, 09:38 PM
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eRockets carries the full line of a huge number of vendors. Rack after rack of amazing stuff. Very dangerous place to walk through with any money in your pocket.

Randy is always on the lookout for bargains and apparently the MPC line is currently available from him for $7 each.
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Old 08-26-2015, 09:40 PM
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Randy hosts a local NAR group which is attracting so many folks that he doesn't have enough chairs. You only get to use one if you are actually building, LOL.

Photo below is of his area for build groups.
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Old 08-26-2015, 09:42 PM
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Randy in the aisle with the mid and high power kits, LOC, PML, North Coast, and others.
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Old 08-26-2015, 09:44 PM
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He also stocks an amazing variety of rocketry related tools, gizmos, and gadgets. For a tool nut like me it was "stuff-I-don't-really-need-but-really-should-have" nirvana.

I bet you didn't realize you need a little widget that fits in your X-acto instead of a blade and is used to apply microscopic amounts of CA exactly where you want it. Apparently these are selling like hotcakes. I didn't get one today (I already ordered some several months ago when they were a "Recently Released" item).
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Last edited by Gus : 08-26-2015 at 10:43 PM.
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Old 08-26-2015, 09:44 PM
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Good to see that wall. Reminds me of back around 90-91 when I worked at a LHS, and we loaded up a wall about that size with Estes. Man, that was a good sight! Pleasant memories.

I know Jay will be happy -- the Tau Zero is positioned on the right side of the long wall. Good model. Flew well all the way up through C6 power.

Can't wait to see the parts catalog again. I'm starting to get "the itch" to work with RockSim again.
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Old 08-26-2015, 09:49 PM
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Then on to parts. Entire racks of Semroc body tubes, cut to length, for every kit Semroc offers, and will offer. So I asked Randy about how he cuts the tubes and that's when the "behind-the-scenes-at Semroc" part of the tour started.

The machine in the pic below is actually a lathe that Carl modified to cut tubes. Randy has about 20 mandrels for all current body tube sizes. He puts the mandrel on the lathe, sets the desired tool length, and then a special cutting wheel Carl designed cuts the tubes. Very, very cool. You can do lots of tubes quickly, but you can also do just a few as you need them. Really ingenious setup and very typical of Carl's genius.
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Old 08-26-2015, 09:50 PM
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Dr. Zooch wall.
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Old 08-26-2015, 09:57 PM
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Then Randy introduced me to Eric, his "Cone Guy". I've always wondered how Semroc cut nosecones and Eric walked me thorugh the whole process. Basically the nose cone cutting machine is a combo lathe and dremel, driven by a CNC machine. Block of balsa is chucked to the spinning lathe, computer is told what is going to be cut, then the dremel with a specially modified blade makes multiple passes to fashion the cone. Really incredible to watch.

Then, the Semroc touch, just like Sheryl used to do, the almost complete cone is very gently sanded with very fine sandpaper.

I always wondered how Semroc made those great cones and now I know. My thanks to Eric for walking me through the whole process.
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Old 08-26-2015, 09:58 PM
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More nosecone making pics
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