Build Day 6: Roughing the thrust chamber

Started by boring a hole smaller than the throat all the way through the piece

Then I enlarged the bore so that I could fit a boring head to take it out to 10 thousandths short of the ID of 1.4"

Build Day 5: Top injector plate and hoops!

Spent most of my time after work playing basketball with my friend Branden. I was inspired to do so after hearing on the radio that I am supposed to get at least 1 full hour of activity per day... 1 hour is about all I get in an entire month so it was a nice change.

Got to test my injector

Machined out the simplest piece of my design.

Build Day 4: Finishing the jacket

I got a lot of work done today. Most of the jacket is milled out exactly the the design dimensions, to my surprise. I had to make a variety of tools to bore the inside to the depth that I needed.

I left about 200 thousandths around the bottom of the jacket so that my 1/4" NPT fitting will have something to grab onto. Now I just have to figure out a way to get all 6 of my 1/4" bolts to the flange with the extra thickness in the way.

Build Day 3: 4 hours shaping the coolant jacket and refining the parts

This is the contour of my nozzle. However, I cut the piece too short so now i have to make another one =/

The cooling jacket bored all of the way through

First parts order arrived

I managed to track down a used nitrous oxide system from a 1992 Mustang 5.0 on craigslist for $160. A great deal considering I was looking at paying that much for the solenoids alone!

The solenoid are certainly "vintage" to say the least but as long as they work the same. I figure at worst I may have to rebuild them but luckily I have access to a machine shop!

On the fuel end of things, I have had a double ended tank with ~0.3 L capacity since my first liquid rocket project during my senior year of college. Thanks to my friend Pat Champey!

Got my first shipment of McMaster parts including mostly check valves and o-rings

30 thousand inch drill bit for the oxidizer holes

Stainless Steel fuel nozzle rated up to 4000 psi. My original thoughts were to order the 80 degree full cone sprayer but I accidentally ordered the 160 degree hollow cone. But hey! This is science! I'm going to try it out and see how it goes. Worse comes to worst fuel reaches the walls providing a little film cooling. The latent heat of vaporization for IPA is so low that it shouldn't cause a problem.

Build Day 2: Roughing out the component shapes

Build Day 1: Bulk metal shaping

Getting reaquainted with the machine shop and turning the diameters down to the correct size