astronwolf: Good suggestion for large builds. Thanks, I'll keep it in mind. There's no particular hurry, it's just that taking several hours to produce a single set of fins which will only be used once is a bit of a waste. They do not necessarily need to be biodegradable. The bodies typically are, since some of these are not recoverable (get lost).

tbzep: Right now we're actually building some rockets for E45 motors, though we also want to do this for small A10 motors. In other words, both high and low stress options are wanted. Surface mounting is obviously easier, so we may try the 1/8" balsa and epoxy you suggested.


We have all the basic parts of home-made rocket motors working, so now we are experimenting putting them together. Things sometimes don't go quite as planned, so when something goes wrong mid-flight, we sometimes lose the rocket. Since these are only tests, we don't much care what they look like, as long as they are aerodynamically suitable. These are not model rockets which are carefully and lovingly assembled with care to details. This is more of the duct tape and cardboard option than the elegant one. The easier and cheaper they are, the nicer it is for us.

Thanks!