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Photo 1
The whole process starts with a design. I prefer graph paper to plain to work out the proportion and dimensions. Then I choose wood species appropriate to the design. The design may change as the rocket is built, but it’s still essential to have something to start from.
In this case, I made two rockets at the same time and chose maple (light sections) and bubinga (dark sections) for one and maple and padauk for the other.
Photo 2
The components of the body are cut and glued up. In this case, I used a large maple dowel for the body and slices of square padauk and bubinga for the stripes, nose and base. In order to keep everything lined up properly, I drilled holes through the center of each section and used small dowels to aid in keeping the sections straight and aligned.
Page last updated 15 June 2007