Underpants Elastic Bands And Other Mistakes

The Thrifty Rocketeer weblog continues….

Normally, this blog tries to offer you some helpful, constructive suggestions.But as we speak, we are going to take a look at a few things To not try.

Just tonight, I used to be chatting with some rocketry buddies by Zoom, and one of many more senior guys holds up a couple of items destined for his high energy rocket. He’s asking for assist and advice on the right way to proceed.

He’s bought a medium sized carabiner in his proper hand, and in his left is a strip of what he is asking an elastic band. (It looks more like the headband that Spock wears in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, jacquard elastic webbing but regardless of.)

It’s a long length or skein of two inch large elastic band that looks like it’d both go in a truss, a bra, or some form of again brace.

And he’s asking, “How do I attach this to that?”

The dialogue begins and rules out sewing (cause the stitches won’t stretch), rivets (trigger they’ll pop at any time when it stretches), grommets (for the same reason) and glue, (because it won’t “give” with out cracking).

One rocketeer stated, “Dump it, just get a nylon rope or comparable woven tube, and tie it on”, woven elastic webbing just as you would in mountain climbing.

We all just about agreed that the 2 inch width of the elastic band won’t permit for a tight knot to be tied around the carabiner, so we settle on the nylon tube/rope idea.

Now this began me considering concerning the time that I thought of making my very own shock cord out of elastic. I used to be doing a scratch construct for a recycling display on how you would flip strange 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 convinced my wife to lend me her pinking sheers, and i used a seam ripper to free the elastic band from the pair of shorts. Very quickly, I tired of the seam ripper, and went for a straight sharp pair of fabric sheers, and just minimize as close to the waist band as I could.

Now that I had the loop of elastic free, I do not recall if I minimize across the seem or ripped it free, but I wound up with a single size of 1 inch extensive elastic that still had numerous stretch in it.

Deciding that the band was too huge, I took the fabric sheers and cut down the middle of the band leaving an equal width of elastic band on both side of the reduce. What I hadn’t counted upon was the fraying, which began immediately. If you have any queries pertaining to in which and how to use knitted elastic webbing, you can make contact with us at the web page. The two elastic strips, while about forty two inches lengthy, curled and buckled, refusing to put flat.

This was symptomatic of how the elastic band would behave regardless of how I reduce it , stretched it, or steam pressed it. I realized that you just Can’t cut an elastic band lengthwise had have it work. (Now, for the purposes of my poster board show of the components of a rocket, it worked well sufficient, but for really use in a rocket, my idea would not have worked.)

What WOULD work is the purchase of about 3 toes of narrow 1/8-1/four inch elastic from Joann Fabrics or comparable store. Except for the run on this material to make masks through the pandemic, this might work for smaller, low-power rockets when you wanted to change a shock cord.