A Hot Knife thru Butter

 The Thrifty Rocketeer blog continues...

You may have heard that there is a world-wide shortage of balsa that has been impacting the rocketry kit community.

It's my understanding that to combat this, several of the major manufacturers have switched to either blown plastic nosecones or 3-D printed nosecones.  I can't comment on 3-D, cause I've only run into one so far, but the point I joined in making rockets seemed to be the transition between balsa to blown plastic.


May be an image of food

In some of these kits, the plastic made sense, especially as you got to larger sizes, where a wooden block might be extremely difficult to ship, let alone whittle down.

Recently, I saw a tip from another rocketeer that I thought I would pass along 

(even though it is not my own).No photo description available.

When slicing a blown plastic nosecone free from its tail section, or from an unused transition, I typically have used an Exacto knife... very sharp, and firmly held... it will slice the white blown plastic with precision.  However, if your knife is no longer sharp, it can be a problem.  In those times, I have used a snap-off blade knife or a new box-cutter or linoleum knife.

But the tip that I heard was this:  Use a heated knife, and the cutting will be much easier.  The light-bulb went off in my head, as the plastic is likely to soften for the knife blade.

Then I got to thinking, why not soak the blown plastic nosecone in warm-to-hot water first, and soften the plastic.

...BECAUSE IT MIGHT MELT, if your water is too hot.

But the heated blade of an Exacto knife might still do the trick.

I have yet to try this suggestion, but I thought I'd pass it along.

Tell me if it works for you, or if it is a dead end.

This has been the Thrifty Rocketeer, saying "Save your balsa wood scraps!"

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The End of the Line

Image
 The Thrifty Rocketeer blog continues... Well, for years, the state of the model rocket industry relied upon plans and patterns that were photocopied or printed out, and then applied to standard sheets of balsa to be cut out. Eventually, the various parts for various sized rockets were packaged in groups or blister packs, and sold at hobby shops across the nation.  The emphasis was on home brew or building a rocket to specifications and plans. Eventually, entire kits were pre-packaged, with all the parts that one would need.  And then, laser cut shapes, fins or parts were already pre-cut, doing away with the need for most of the patterns and tracing. So what happened to all those bags and bister packs of parts of rockets?  That is, a baggie of various nose cones... or connectors... or transitions or more ?   Many of  those packages remain at your local mom and pop hobby store, just waiting for someone to come in and buy some of their pegboard stock....
Read more

sleeping with the enemy

Image
 The Thrifty Rocketeer blog continues... First thing I did when they put in a Hobby Lobby in my smaller metropolitan town, 40 miles away, was to grab an application to work there.  Now I know what you're thinking... "How could you?  Who would want to work for that conservative corporation?".. as my daughter would say.  And you'd be partially right. I saved the application and took note of the mailing address. Within the first month or so, most of the initial buying frenzy was over, having sold out of some things, but not everything.   But it seemed nothing new was getting restocked. So, I got on my word processor and wrote a letter to the store management, THANKING them for bringing the store to our isolated metro area. I pointed out that many of the items had sold through completely, and how much we had appreciated their stocking rockets. Then I also encouraged them to restock and consider expanding the display, pointing to the fact that as rocketeers grow...
Read more

Death of a Hobby

Image
 The Thrifty Rocketeer blog continues... No, this is not a column about how Model Rocketry is a dying hobby.  It's actually about another sister hobby that sometimes overlaps into Rocketry. I'm talking about Amateur Radio. Just this last weekend, our local Ham Radio club held a "swap meet" which is commonly called a Hamfest.  These gatherings to buy and sell used equipment, parts and visit old friends typically happen just once a year and in the absence of the late Radio Shack, is one of the only places to find parts and electronic elements. There is also testing held to advance to higher licenses. The admission varies depending on the club, their overhead, expense of renting the hall or venue, and the number of tables that they can sell to area vendors who will drive across state with their wares to set up for the half day show. It's not uncommon for amateur radio operators to drive across state to attend, pay admission and get a single entry into the door prize ...
Read more