HEXA Open Source Hexagonal Rocket

 

It's been a busy couple of weeks in the Concretedog lair! Numerous items have been restocked over on the Tindie store and a couple of new products have been released. The most notable though has been HEXA, my opensource hexagonal model rocket. 

A while ago I made some flat pack rockets for Hackspace magazine which had no tubes used in their construction. Whilst that was an interesting engineering experiment and produced some interesting rockets, it struck me that rocket kits without tubes are easier to mail!

HEXA is made from 3D printed parts and the hexagonal tubes are made up from 220gsm card stock using a cut and score technique which I have a small vinyl cutter machine doing so they turn out really crisp! 3D printing is obviously great for making parts but what's really useful here is you can print the nosecone with different amounts of infill to vary the weight to adjust the centre of gravity and stability of the rocket. At 20% infill the nosecone design prints to be around 10 grams in PLA and sets the CG perfectly, then, if you want to fly a payload in the upper section, like an altimeter you could print a second lighter nosecone to keep stability and weight optimised. Cool! 

Over on the project repository I've put together a 14 page PDF of documentation which covers building from the HEXA kit I am selling on Tindie, as well as tips and tricks for people creating their own HEXA from scratch. I've already seen some brilliant parts being printed where people are using a filament swap to make the nosecones look even more like pencils! The kits are complete with launch lugs and even a parachute kit for recovery, so, like many commercial model rocket kits, all you have to add is motors, wadding and launch gear. It flies really nicely on a B6-4 with plenty of altitude. 

Finally, I'm proud to say that I applied for and received OSHW certification for this project. In fact, it's the first OSHWA rocket ever to be certified! Hope to see more in the future.

My EDC Hand Sewing Kit

 

I've been doing a fair bit of machine sewing of late but whenever I sew, my little accumulated hand sewing kit is always at hand as I invariably need a needle at some point. The hand sewing kit is however more a kit for everyday carry for repairs which has certainly seen it's fair use. I thought it might be of interest to go through it and share how a few of the items are intended  for use.    

The case itself  is cobbled together from scraps. One half forms a pocket and the lid is lined with a piece of felt to hold a variety of needles and a small amount of tee pins. Not always sewing related, the tee pins are  regularly pulled from the kit pressed into service to unblock glue bottles and other fine poking! 

The pouch has a small piece of Paracord stitched onto it to which can be tied around the kit to keep it secure. I also have a smaller piece of cord stitched to the bag which has a loop tied and a quick link attached to which I attach a small classic Victorinox SD penknife.  I tie it to the kit as it's a nice little device that would be easily lost when repairing whilst camping in field or carrying out a parachute repair at a launch site. The penknife has a small blade, a file, a pair of fine scissors and tweezers and toothpick... more later on how I use it!

I also have a set of folding scissors that I bought in a sewing shop on the Isle of Arran a while back . They are super sharp and snippy and cut threads and fabric well. 

You'll notice I have some "wonder clips", these are fantastic little clips that have become a tool in all my    making.. they are so useful! I have a couple of hundred in my workroom but half a dozen or so is great for work holding for sewing repairs in the field. 

 I have a lighter, often the lighter is deployed to heat the end of Paracord or webbing to seal it and stop  it fraying, but I have another cunning use for the lighter. There is a bundle of white stuff, and a small roll of light green stuff. The white stuff is iron on stabiliser, I have loads of this for machine  sewing projects but carrying a little is really useful for repair . You can stop a small hole or tear from getting  larger by cutting a small patch of the stabiliser, then, without an iron, you can use the lighter to heat the file tool on the Swiss Army knife and use this to press fix a small patch in place. I can do similar with the green rolled material which is seam tape for Goretex garments, its super handy  to quickly  seal a small  hole  in  a garment (often after a barb wire fence crossing) but also could fix a small problem in a tent canopy etc. 

For thread I tend to wind amounts onto pieces of cardboard with slots snipped into them.  It makes the kit smaller than if you tried to carry actual bobbins of thread. As for the colours I tend  to either want muted and plain, or, really visible..    If I  am repairing something out and about I might use the day-glo stuff so it's easy to  find the repair again later when I might want to redo it in a more permanent  style. 

The  rest of the stuff is less critical, a few  buttons  a bit of cord. The small off-white pen like item is my quick unpick tool and of course, a safety pin or two are always useful  to hold  stuff or for reinserting a cord in a channel! Hope you enjoyed this little glimpse into one of my many bits and bobs kits I carry!