Stuck Motor

Had a great time in Sudbury on Sunday! We had a bunch of friends out and I am pretty sure that Ben and I were responsible for about 10% of the launches. Our fleet was decimated though. Two complete losses (Tres and glider in tops of trees), and three others with damage or significant pieces missing . Oh well, don\'t launch them if you don\'t want to loose them. Pretty sure that Ben\'s social status increased though with all of his school buddies that showed up.

My question is, we have the bottom stage of a two stage Estes Solar Flare with a motor that I can not get out. I have been pulling on it with pliers and cutting it with an exacto-knife. Any thoughts on how to remove the motor?

Nick

Not sure on getting the motor out, but I have a spare Solar Flare booster, as it happens. I could probably bring it to the next launch (also in Sudbury). Only thing is, if I recall, your Solar Flare is unpainted, and my booster is painted yellow with the waterslide decals applied. I built the rocket a while ago, so the paint job is pretty badly done, but it works fine. Sustainer got hung up in a tree and I lost the payload tube and nose cone, and the rest of the sustainer got rained on, so if you want the booster, it\'s yours.

If you have access to both ends of the dead motor you should be able to knock the nozzle end out and then perhaps sneak a hacksaw blade in there to cut a groove from the inside to the outside. That should give you enough movement to alow you to get it out.

We use this to remove frozen cutlass on boats and they are made of metal. A web search will find the methods used on a cutlass bearing, modify it for your use

The Solar Flare booster includes a centering ring and BT-5 forward of the motor mount in order to channel the hot gasses to ignite the 13mm motor in the sustainer, so it\'d be hard to access both ends of the motor. I got a motor out of my boost glider\'s pod once by just crushing the exposed nozzle end with pliers, which knocked the nozzle out and unstuck the motor.