Underpants Elastic Bands And Other Mistakes
The Thrifty Rocketeer blog continues….
Normally, this weblog tries to offer you some helpful, constructive suggestions.But at present, we will have a look at a couple of things To not try.
Just tonight, I used to be chatting with some rocketry mates by Zoom, and one of the extra senior guys holds up a couple of items destined for his high energy rocket. He’s asking for assist and advice on methods to proceed.
He’s obtained a medium sized carabiner in his right hand, and in his left is a strip of what he is calling an elastic band. (It seems to be extra just like the headband that Spock wears in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, however no matter.)
It’s a long size or skein of two inch vast elastic band that appears like it’d both go in a truss, a bra, or some type of again brace.
And he’s asking, “How do I attach this to that?”
The discussion starts and rules out sewing (trigger the stitches won’t stretch), rivets (cause they will pop at any time when it stretches), grommets (for a similar motive) and glue, (because it won’t “give” without cracking).
One rocketeer mentioned, “Dump it, simply get a nylon rope or related woven elastic webbing tube, and tie it on”, simply as you would in mountain climbing.
We all pretty much agreed that the 2 inch width of the elastic band won’t enable for a tight knot to be tied around the carabiner, so we settle on the nylon tube/rope thought.
Now this began me pondering concerning the time that I considered making my very own shock cord out of elastic. I was doing a scratch build for a recycling display on how you might turn bizarre trash right into a very simple rocket and nosecone with plastic Wal-Mart bag parachute. For a shock cord, I had settled upon an old pair of men’s tighty-whitey briefs.
I satisfied my wife to lend me her pinking sheers, and that i used a seam ripper to free the elastic band from the pair of shorts. In a short time, I bored with the seam ripper, and elastic band went for a straight sharp pair of fabric sheers, and just minimize as near the waist band as I could.
Now that I had the loop of elastic free, I don’t recall if I minimize across the seem or ripped it free, however I wound up with a single length of 1 inch large elastic that still had plenty of stretch in it.
Deciding that the band was too large, I took the fabric sheers and reduce down the middle of the band leaving an equal width of elastic band on either facet of the cut. If you beloved this write-up and elastic webbing cheap you would like to obtain much more details relating to elastic webbing Cheap kindly pay a visit to the site. What I hadn’t counted upon was the fraying, which started immediately. The 2 elastic strips, whereas about 42 inches lengthy, curled and buckled, refusing to lay flat.
This was symptomatic of how the elastic band would behave regardless of how I reduce it , stretched it, or steam pressed it. I learned that you simply Can’t reduce an elastic band lengthwise had have it work. (Now, for the needs of my poster board show of the components of a rocket, it worked well enough, however for really use in a rocket, my thought wouldn’t have worked.)
What WOULD work is the purchase of about 3 feet of slim 1/8-1/four inch woven elastic webbing from Joann Fabrics or related store. Except for the run on this materials to make masks during the pandemic, this might work for smaller, low-power rockets when you needed to change a shock cord.
