The Thrifty Rocketeer

 The Thrifty Rocketeer blog pauses for a rocket review... OK, I gotta admit that I wasn't very impressed from the start...but I bought the kit off the rack at Hobby Lobby anyway. Someone else had posted pics of their flight on Facebook and I thought it looked interesting as an "Advanced" rocket kit. So I sought it out. First, at $14.99 I thought it was a little pricy. Gone are the days of the HL discount. You got to catch them on clearance if you want any sort of a price break. Mine was full price. I was a bit surprised to discover the Epic II was only an 18 mm rocket, and a two stage at that, but I bought it. Right from the unbagging, I was concerned. The sheet of balsa fins was thin... easily the thinnest that I have ever seen . I tried to get the laser cut fins out with an Exacto knife helping me, and I STILL snapped the flashing around the fins. Not the FINS, mind you, but just the flashing. This warned me that I was going to have to be extremely careful

 The Thrifty Rocketeer blog continues... It's something that I fell into quite by accident, but thought that I would share with you. I was packing up a load of low power rockets that I had completed and flown to be shown at a public exhibit.  Our club was preparing to sell entry level kits for cost at an airshow.  I wanted to include both a square of sand paper and a bottle of wood glue to show prospective parental supervision what additional tools might be needed to assemble the simple "MyBoid" rocket. At the It same time, I saw someone post on Facebook their successful build and launch of an Epic II rocket kit. I knew that my local HL had two on the pegboard, and so, since it was a middle skill level kit, I thought I'd buy one and whip it together quickly. I got the kit, and opened it while on my lunch break. I also had in my possession, a roll of adhesive 220 grit sandpaper. The intent was for it to be adhered to the flat short plane that I had scored earlier...the