For whatever reason, I have been finding it difficult to find time to blog. Perhaps it is a combination of increased amount of travel, work, or just the shorter daylight hours, but I’m finding it hard to find the muse. So, for the next little while, I thought I’d scan through my bookshelf and find some of the stranger books that I’ve acquired, and present them with little mini-reviews and hope that some discussion and inspiration occurs.

The first of these is Dan Pollino’s Build It Yourself! PVC Rocket Engine.

Okay, first the disclaimer: I haven’t ever built any of these, and don’t really know that much about them. Even without the addition of potassium nitrate, molten sugar can burn you fairly badly if you aren’t careful. Witness the bandaids on legendary hacker Jeri Ellsworth if you need more caution, but be careful: it might serve as inspiration.

For all I know, you might end up on some watchlist for buying the book as well, although I’ve flown a bunch of times with only the usual annoyances, and no fresh ones. YMMV.

Dan has a website. Sadly, it seems to be mostly their to entice you into buying his book, with relatively little “free” information, but if you follow his links page you can probably find some more information, although a disconcerting fraction of them seem to be dead links. (You might try James Yawn’s Sugar Rocket link page for more information.) The book itself is however quite good. You might be scared a tiny bit by the appearance of CAUTION! on very nearly every page of the book, but it presents all the stages of making a powerful rocket engine in very clear detail, including modelling the nozzle, the core, the igniters and the fuel. If I have a criticism, it’s that the book doesn’t present any theory or chemistry, it’s literally just a HOWTO guide for building rocket engines. It also doesn’t even try to cover the legality of making or using these rockets. But it delivers on what it promises: a clear guide that shows you how to make and test a rocket engine which is probably significantly more powerful than the ESTES rockets you might have flown as a kid.

I’m not sure I’ll ever get to building one of these, but it is fascinating.