Sugar rockets. Anyone here make them?

[DanWalker]

Been into model rocketry for a while now and am intrigued by the KNO3/sugar rocket motors. Anyone here have any experience with them?

[koehlerrk]

Well, as a kid, I made the ones where I used an old hot plate, outside, to melt sugar and potassium nitrate together.

Seems there's some new twists to doing it... watch these vids. Planning on making some of these come summer with my son.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12fR9neVnS8&list=WL&index=30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_L2yRydMZs&index=29&list=WL

[DanWalker]

Yeah, I tried his formula and dry packed it. wound up with really weak thrust. I'm thinking maybe my kno3 is water contaminated. I have been dissolving it and the sugar in water, then boiling off the water. Got a test batch cooling now. Will let it set a couple days before firing.

[Reg]

Have to tune #1 son into this. He is always trying to either blow something up or send it vertical out of sight !!!!!!!

[rondog]

Hmm, homemade rocket fuel.....would you put me in your will, just in case? Just for some molds.....

[oldred]

Hmm, homemade rocket fuel.....would you put me in your will, just in case? Just for some molds.....

You got to be kidding!!! :roll:

That KNO3/Sugar recipe has been around for eons and is much safer than commercial fireworks (of course that's not saying much!)! Certainly there is a fire hazard just as there is with just about anything that burns in order to do what it's supposed to do but if you are insinuating this is dangerous as in getting someone blown up that's just ridiculous, this "homemade rocket fuel" has been the mainstay of the model rocket hobby for years and literally millions of hobby rockets have been flown using the stuff. I was making it when I was twelve years old, IIRC I got the recipe from a boy's life magazine in the school library (well the "book-mobile" mobile library truck that used to make the rounds to those old country schools)!

[mozeppa]

we used to just call it salt peter & sugar.

we wasn't so hoity toity with fancy names.

[koehlerrk]

Well Dan, KNO3 is known to absorb moisture. Best rockets I ever made were cooked in the morning and flown that afternoon. Good luck, keep us posted.

[jmorris]

Keep us posted on what works and what doesn't.

[rondog]

You got to be kidding!!! :roll:

That KNO3/Sugar recipe has been around for eons and is much safer than commercial fireworks (of course that's not saying much!)! Certainly there is a fire hazard just as there is with just about anything that burns in order to do what it's supposed to do but if you are insinuating this is dangerous as in getting someone blown up that's just ridiculous, this "homemade rocket fuel" has been the mainstay of the model rocket hobby for years and literally millions of hobby rockets have been flown using the stuff. I was making it when I was twelve years old, IIRC I got the recipe from a boy's life magazine in the school library (well the "book-mobile" mobile library truck that used to make the rounds to those old country schools)!

Of course I'm kidding! I also have no clue what KNO3 is.

[DanWalker]

Of course I'm kidding! I also have no clue what KNO3 is.
It's Potassium Nitrate (stump remover) also known as saltpeter.
I have been having trouble getting good thrust out of these motors. I have been trying to light them with fuse, but it doesn't seem to be igniting them properly. Lots of sputtering and smoke, but not a lot of thrust. I am making some electrical igniters today to try lighting them from the top of the core instead of the bottom.
http://www.nakka-rocketry.net/#Quick


http://www.jacobsrocketry.com/aer/caramel_candy_propellant.htm

Those are a couple of links to the information sources I am using. Next batch of fuel will be the recrystallized kno3/dextrose mix.

[richhodg66]

This is great! I'd never heard of this before, oddly.

When were were kids, my brother and I were in the Air Force JROTC which had a Rocket Club, in fact, he was the captain of it for a year or two. Really liked the Estes rockets and about 12 years ago when I was running the Cub Scout pack here, each boy made a rocket and we had a launch day, all of them got three or four launches. Great fun. This makes me wish I still had sons at home who were of an age to appreciate this. Gotta try it someday.

[303Guy]

I've never heard of this before but I did once experiment with sugar and KNOз while playing around with making black powder. What is the correct ratio by weight?

[dtknowles]

I've never heard of this before but I did once experiment with sugar and KNOз while playing around with making black powder. What is the correct ratio by weight?

I am probably going to get clobber for saying this so I am going to start with a disclaimer, don't try this at home and should only be tried by trained professionals using special equipment not generally available.

I think at least one of the newer blackpowder subs use a similar formula, in the place of dextrose they use sucralose. Isn't one of the new subs white? The formulas I have seen do not contain sulfur but some do have charcoal. As you can see from the rocket fuel, charcoal is not required to create pressure but it might moderate the pressure to keep is in a useable range.

One of the earlier posters indicated he was having trouble getting useable thrust out of his motors, It could be his nozzle is as much the problem as his fuel. The nozzle and fuel grain need to be of compatible areas or either too much or not enough pressure will be created. These things can blow up, be careful. If one blows up you might want to have some documentation that indicates you were trying to make a hobby rocket and not have pounds of propellant hanging around. They have taken people to jail and charged them with making explosives with this kind of stuff. Having a launch pad and some rockets with fins and a recovery system would be a good start. Making your own bottle rockets might be a crime under fireworks laws. The difference between hobby rockets and fireworks is usually about the intent to recover the rocket and use it again. Using fuses for the ignition is a signature of fireworks but I don't consider this definitive. Hobby rockets usually use a remote electrical initiated igniter.

Tim

[303Guy]

I've heard that when black powder was running low the gunners would sometimes bulk it up using sugar. My sugar experiments produced a fizzling effect, not a rapid burn like black powder. With rocket fuel, what is used in fireworks rockets?

[dtknowles]

I've heard that when black powder was running low the gunners would sometimes bulk it up using sugar. My sugar experiments produced a fizzling effect, not a rapid burn like black powder. With rocket fuel, what is used in fireworks rockets?

You might google fireworks and get kits and ingredients from those sites. Even the small hobby rockets use the same "black powder" that the fireworks guys use. I reloaded some Estes rocket motors and some worked and blew some up. I don't think it is the same formula as we use for firearms. I had best luck when I diluted the powder with a binder. The blow ups could have been from the nozzle plugging caused by powder chunks breaking loose so the binder may have prevented chunking but it probably suppressed the burn rate as well. There are a lot of hobby rocket sites or at least there were when I was into it.

Tim

[Idz]

an excellent resource for information and supplies is http://www.skylighter.com

[koehlerrk]

Pretty much any good fuel/oxidizer mix will burn.

Getting it to burn reliably in a controlled fashion is a touch more difficult.

Getting it to burn reliably in a controlled fashion while generating a usable thrust... now that's tough.

Dry KNO3 is one of the big hangups when making candy rockets. Get a new sealed bottle of stump remover, pour out what you need and seal the bottle back up immediately.

Process the KNO3 and your fuel and load your engines. Then seal them into tupperware or some other sealed container until launch time, and don't wait too long. I never kept any around more than a day or two. Never had any problems that way.

As for fireworks laws, well they're forbidden in NY state, but model rockets are A-OK. My advice? Join a local rocketry club. The NAR website can get you in contact with someone near you. With club credentials, you're in much better legal standing than someone building them by themselves. That said, do not violate the rules... especially the safety regs. NAR will kick you out immediately if you try building a missile or any other kind of device that breaks the safety regs. Don't worry, the rules give lots of room to play and still be legal.

If you want to kick it up past the "hobby" level, look up the LDRS. This year it's happening about 30 miles away from me... Yes, I'm going!

http://www.nar.org/

(http://ldrs34.org/)http://ldrs34.org/

[175lt2]

Soo funny for me to see this at this time of year, I usually make a few of these rockets for New Years eve every year. well , about 5 years ago I was hosting a New Years party and me and a few buddies snuck away to cook up some rocket fuel. We cooked the fuel on an old gas hot plate in a shed out back where all my reloading and casting stuff is, about ten minutes in my one friends wife came out to check on us, she really didn't know any of us yet and she wasnt sure what to think of us. Well she said hi to everyone then saw me in front of the hot plate with a pan full of a strange substance, there was a few moments of silence followed by "what the hell are you cooking" I turned and calmly said "drugs" and went back to what I was doing, she stormed out with husband in tow. When I tracked them down back in the house and explained to her it wasn't really drugs we are only making rockets she wasn't much happier, I heard something about drinking and acting like little kids but I wasn't really paying attention.
They both remind me of this story every year.������

[175lt2]

Soo funny for me to see this at this time of year, I usually make a few of these rockets for New Years eve every year. well , about 5 years ago I was hosting a New Years party and me and a few buddies snuck away to cook up some rocket fuel. We cooked the fuel on an old gas hot plate in a shed out back where all my reloading and casting stuff is, about ten minutes in my one friends wife came out to check on us, she really didn't know any of us yet and she wasnt sure what to think of us. Well she said hi to everyone then saw me in front of the hot plate with a pan full of a strange substance, there was a few moments of silence followed by "what the hell are you cooking" I turned and calmly said "drugs" and went back to what I was doing, she stormed out with husband in tow. When I tracked them down back in the house and explained to her it wasn't really drugs we are only making rockets she wasn't much happier, I heard something about drinking and acting like little kids but I wasn't really paying attention.
They both remind me of this story every year.😃😄😀

[Jungle867]

Using stump remover may work, but you will have much better results with technical grade materials. I have built small and large engines with KN03 and sugar. I found that heating the mixture to the point of it becoming a paste and then stirring to get a homogenous mixture kept the burn rate relatively even. Be careful if you are going to heat the mixture though, if you get it to hot it will ignite and if you have your body anywhere near it will be burned. A second thing to think about is the shape of the engine. That includes nozzle shape, nozzle opening size, and engine tube diameter and length. If you search, there are guides available on the internet. Good Luck and be safe.

[DanWalker]

I've never heard of this before but I did once experiment with sugar and KNOз while playing around with making black powder. What is the correct ratio by weight?

I'm using a ratio 65% KNO3 to 17.5% karo syrup(dextrose) and 17.5% powdered sugar(sucrose). I bought the KNO3 off of ebay of all places. I got 10 lbs for 26 bucks.
I mix kno3 in a cheap blender to fully pulverize it and render it into a fine powder. Then I dump in the powdered sugar. DO NOT mix them with the mixer. They are flammable when mixed together. I use the mixer container and shake it vigorously for a few minutes while my hot plate is warming. I set hot plate on medium low heat and put my 4 dollar skillet on there to warm. I add 1/4 cup of water to the pan and let it warm up until it bubbles. While it is warming I put my karo syrup in microwave for 30 seconds to thin it and make it easier to pour and measure. I use red solo cups to hold my mixes until they go into the pan. Once water is bubbling, I pour in karo syrup and let it heat up and thin out. I stir with a spatula to help it thin and spread in the water. Once the syrup is spread, I dump in half of my kno3 and sugar mix. It will almost immediately dissolve into the water syrup mix. Just keep stirring. Once it is dissolved, I add the rest of my Kno3 sugar mix and continue to stir. This process will dissolve the sugar and kno3 and allow them to mix together and bond much more uniformly than simply dry mixing them. The next step here is to drive out all the water. You can raise the heat SLIGHTLY, but watch out for scorching or boil overs. It isn't long before the mix will begin to coagulate into a gooey mass. Just keep stirring it and let the water boil off. Keep going until your mixture is the consistency of peanut butter. You will smell the sugar quite distinctly as the water boils off. Watch for an overly sweet or burnt smell. This is a sign that your heat is too high and you are caramelizing the sugars. This is a BAD thing. At the least you are seriously degrading the motor, and at the worst you may be nearing the ignition point of your mixture. Once your mixture has reached the peanut butter state it is ready for casting into whatever case you have chosen. I am working on some stuff for this now and will describe it in detail if I get it working.

[willie_pete]

My brothers and I used to make them years ago with technical KNO3 and straight sugar. Convinced our mom it was perfectly safe so we could cook it in the kitchen. She believed us until one cooked off on the stove. From then on it had to be outside. We wanted to check the thrust, so we buried one in the ground downside up on top of the bathroom scale with a max weight counter we rigged up. When we dug up the scale , it was bent concave, never to weigh again. All we know is we topped 300 pounds. Of course we lived out in the middle of nowhere near Cape Canaveral. Ahh, good times.

WP

[freebullet]

Cabin fever has undoubtedly hit cast boolit members lol.

In 7th grade science class we made rockets. It's the only reason I passed that class. I had the only airbrush painted rocket. I painted it black and faded electric current red up part way with my airbrush and clear coated it with chromabase . I also made a triple engine rocket. That one was black with a bumble bee yellow fade up the rocket. I launched that 1 several times before loosing it to wind. The teacher was so impressed he even took a couple of us on the roof of the school to recover one of mine. That's a move that would probably get a teacher fired today. I guess none of the kids or teacher had access to left over automotive paints because they were all enamored with them. I let the science teacher keep the single engine red one and he proudly displayed it on his top shelf. It was still there when I left that school lol.

Thanks for sharing the motor recipes. It took me way back.

[oldred]

. These things can blow up, be careful. If one blows up you might want to have some documentation that indicates you were trying to make a hobby rocket and not have pounds of propellant hanging around.Tim


The Potassium Nitrate/Sugar mixture will not likely "blow up", if the nozzle is too small it may (probably) make enough pressure to blow off the nozzle or possible even rupture the case but it's very difficult or impractical to make it "blow up"! Now if you are talking about using other chemicals or some of the BP substitutes as part of the mix then all bets are off and who knows what could happen but I can assure you that as kids we tried every conceivable way to make this stuff explode! We even made what would have otherwise been a pipe bomb had it been loaded with a different mixture but even with that thing being about a 1" pipe a foot long capped on both ends all that gas vented out the tiny fuse hole, heck we even tried using a cherry bomb as a detonator (in another "experiment", not in that pipe) and all it did was make a lot more smoke!

Yep we were rather diabolical inventors as youngsters! :mrgreen:

[oldred]

Just a warning about using stump remover for anyone wanting to try this, not all stump removers are Potassium Nitrate anymore and a lot of them are now using Sodium Pyrosulphite instead so be sure and verify that what you are buying is the genuine article to avoid disappointing results.

[sthwestvictoria]

Rocket templates:
http://plans.rocketshoppe.com/pubs/Centuri/cenMRDM/MRDM.pdf

This is also a pretty interesting read about serious home motors:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/235713871/Rocket-Manual-for-Amateurs-By-Capt-Bertrand-R-Brinley-Ballantine-Books-1960-385s#scribd

[aut0m4tic1]

Dan, your on the right track. Your nozzle is probably to blame. I used you exact process with a different recipe. I know this post is a tad old, did you get it to work?
Correct convergent and divergent angles are the key to high thrust. My "a" size motor flew an abs pipe rocket (heavy!!) 100 ft. (Steel motor case and nozzle)

[MaLar]

You guys are a bad influence on me! I just spent two hours watching vids on YouTube.
Plus looking at the sites you posted. I don't need another hobby. Jezzz!

[Spector]

I am certain this will sound dangerously ridicules, but we did it back in the early 60's. My brother was experimenting with a sugar mix rocket fuel. I had given up on it earlier as not worth the effort and just gone to salt peter, sulfur and charcoal. Our bombs usually fizzled and our rockets were known, by the neighborhood, to blow up......on the ground.

When my brother would light his fuel on a piece of paper it was never a steady burn. It was fits and spurts and sometimes it would just go out.

He drilled out one of the old blued CO2 tubes from that era and loaded it up with his powder. Put it in a piece of pipe and leaned it against a concrete block. It was angled out over the corn field behind our home. He called my mom and me to come watch and he proceeded to light the rather long fuse and then just stand there. My mom sensing possible danger hollered out the back door for him to move back a safe distance. I assured her he was safe where he was as it probably would just go out.

You can pretty much imagine the rest. It blew up. Blew a small hole in the back yard. Cracked the concrete block and split the steel pipe he was using as a launcher. The CO2 tube we never found. Half of the launcher pipe was gone as well....never to be found. And the remaining half of the launcher pipe was split. I don't think my mom ever trusted my judgement after that.

There was a Catholic high school and convent located off to the side and behind us. We could tell how great our successes, or failures, by how many times the echo came back. The neighbors finally got used to it. Still I suspect many were glad when my brother and I went off to the military.

Different times back then. Can't help but believe, better times.

[DanWalker]

I switched recipes and techniques. I am now using a 65/35 mix of KNo3 and sorbitol. It is MUCH easier to work with.
Here is the Youtube video I learned this method from. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voc_gBC3xxI

I make a pyrogen booster to aid in ignition as well. I dissolve pingpong balls in acetone and mix in some 4f blackpowder, to form a slurry, which I coat the ends of the grains and the cores with. I usually wait 4 or 5 days after casting before I try to launch. I have put a few 1.5" diameter PVC "bottle rockets" up close to 2,000' with this propellant. I am currently building a 54mm diameter rocket to fly with it as the propellant.

[GhostHawk]

My shooting partner and I played with this a bit some 4-5 years back.

I used an electric hot plate and an old teflon frying pan and cooked mine. Not much water needed, and a lot easier than trying to powder everything IMO.

After a couple of small test batch's I ended up adding maybe 1/8 cup black powder to a batch and got much better ignition and more consistent burns.

For ignition I was using the small christmas tree bulb's, score the tip, break it off.
My priming mixture was about 1/2 flash powder (Old black cat firecrackers) and half fine black powder.
Lightly sifted into the bulb with a small tissue paper ball to keep it there and a small piece of scotch tape.

9v battery for ignition at the end of a 100 foot spool of doorbell wire.

No problems with ignition. None. My only real issue was getting a good engine built with the right angles.

The best ones were pounded kitty litter, but the rockets would erode those quite badly in flight sometimes.
If I was to do this again I think I'd invest in a good cast aluminum engine.

Scraps of old 11/4" pvc under sink tubing makes good molds.

Fun stuff until one of those went sideways, started a fire in a ditch that almost got away from us.

[aut0m4tic1]

Glad you got it figured out. I've loved rockets since I was 10. Sugar is a big leap from estes rockets. Lots of fun to be had.