This was the first rocket motor that I had ever tried to build. Inspired by YouTube videos, I constructed it out of PVC pipe and some stacked washers for a nozzle. The fuel was made from “rcandy” which is nothing more than sugar and stump remover. Some stump removers (maybe not anymore) contain KNO3; an oxidizer. I cooked it up in the garage on my dad’s old hot plate that he uses to etch circuit boards (heat is a catalyst for dissolving the copper). The problem with this method is that what you end up getting is a thick, sticky, HOT, paste that has to be packed down inside the motor tube. This leaves the potential for air pockets, and painful burns. When the fuel cooled, I drilled a hole down the center to make room for the gas to flow and a place for the igniter. I had wanted to build a rocket for it, but my dad convinced me to test it first. I think I rigged up the entire test bed on Thanksgiving day. It consisted of a bathroom scale, boards nailed together to hold the motor upside down, and a couple of old cameras pointing at the meter. If you’ve already watched the video by now, you know that it explodes. But the video does not do the noise justice, it was by far the loudest thing I had ever heard. The neighbors across the street came out to see just what the hell was going on, and most likely curious to why the world was ending on Thanksgiving day.
