Model Building

Those of you who know me, also know I like LONG shock cords. Even when the cord isn't so long, it can be a challenge to stuff it into a tube along with a parachute. For example, my Estes Pro Series Ventris has a 2" diameter tube and a half inch wide shock cord. It's not all that long but it can be a challenge getting it plus a thick nylon PS-II parachute into what is for the standard PS-II fare, a relatively narrow tube. High power rocketeers are not strangers to crazy long shock cords and in order to pack a 30 footer plus a really big chute (even in a 4" tube) can get tricky! There is a way to handle this situation if you have a plank and a bunch of nails (in my case a 6" x 16" plank and a wire brad nail gun!).

I've seen this before and make no claims to originality however I wound up a shock cord once and it worked so well that I decided to make this jig to do the task. Here is my un-beautiful but fully functional jig:

The nails are "eyeball" spaced around 1/4" apart... while not dead-essential, the left row is offset from the board's edge by 1/8" from the right row.

Here it is in use for my Ventris:

And you complete the job with a bit of masking tape (ONE time around each end, NOT pressed down hard except to itself!

All you need is a good ejection charge and that tape will NEVER hold together! Of course it's easy to overdo it. You could also use a flimsy small rubber band (like the kind that aerotech gives you with single use motors) to hold things together. I've done it with both.