Spacing for Rocket Racks

[jamisonlm3]

I'm planning on building a 10 shot rocket rack. Is there a commonly agreed on spacing for the rockets in a rack? I'm thinking of having at least 1.5" and maybe 2". Any closer and I feel like they'll be setting others off. The little I've looked into it, it seems lik it's more of a free for all with many different designs.

[Mattp]

You could probably make one basically with a large slit in the middle ... this way you could place them wherever you want .... depending on rocket size.. and how many you want to do

[jamisonlm3]

I thought about that early on, but I figured it was difficult to keep the rocket angled. I considered using either metal or plastic pipe/tube to hold the rockets. Finding the right sized pipe/tubing doesn't look like it's going to work out. My current design uses 3 boards with mirrored holes to hold the rockets. The top two to hold the angle and the bottom one is the actual support for them.

[Theinkdon]

I like Mattp's idea of one with a slit. Not sure why/how you're angling them, but I think for the most part rockets should be shot straight up. Maybe a bit of a tilt away from the audience, is that what you're thinking?
Here's my rack, which I've used 3 or 4 times with no crossfire, whether hand-lighting individual rockets or e-firing salvos:
5159
1.5" spacing just like you were thinking. I don't know where I got that number from, but it seems about right. And I staggered the holes between the front piece and the back piece because I thought the headings might interfere, but that turned out to not be necessary with these rockets. Best done with a drill press, but doable by hand. Sorry it doesn't show the feet, I cropped that out of another picture. The feet are just crosspieces of 1x3. There are conduit clamps near the bottom too, for rebar stakes. I usually just use one on one of the legs to make sure the stand stays upright.

[jamisonlm3]

I'm shooting my rockets straight up. 90 degrees is just the angle I'd want to hold them at. What size holes did you drill for the sticks? I'm thinking of drilling 3/8" holes. I'm surprised how clean your rack looks after using it. Here's the 10 shot idea I'm currently working with. It uses 3/8" threaded rod to hold pieces of 5/8" plywood to angle and support the rockets. A couple of 2x4s are used to stablize the rack. The rocket spacing for this one is almost 1-3/4". The 12 shot is almost exaclty 1-1/2". I've also got plans for using slightly longer threaded rod and more round spacers so the whole rack sits in the mortars of on of my mortar racks.

[Theinkdon]

I like Mattp's idea of one with a slit. Not sure why/how you're angling them, but I think for the most part rockets should be shot straight up. Maybe a bit of a tilt away from the audience, is that what you're thinking?
Here's my rack, which I've used 3 or 4 times with no crossfire, whether hand-lighting individual rockets or e-firing salvos:
5159
1.5" spacing just like you were thinking. I don't know where I got that number from, but it seems about right. And I staggered the holes between the front piece and the back piece because I thought the headings might interfere, but that turned out to not be necessary with these rockets. Best done with a drill press, but doable by hand. Sorry it doesn't show the feet, I cropped that out of another picture. The feet are just crosspieces of 1x3. There are conduit clamps near the bottom too, for rebar stakes. I usually just use one on one of the legs to make sure the stand stays upright.

[Theinkdon]

3/8" is probably what I first drilled them at, but when loading the rack this year I noticed that some of the sticks were a bit of a tight fit, so with a hand drill I drilled them all out to 7/16". 1/2" probably wouldn't be too big, even.
Pretty slick setup you have there, did you draw that in Sketchup?
Speaking of firing from mortar tubes, you can fit 3 pieces of 1/2" PVC in a DR11, and I've shot some that way before as a quick & dirty method.
Do you have any favorite rockets? I bought a case of Shogun Rip Roaring Rockets a couple years ago and they're alright, but I'd like something bigger if that's available. I've made some 1-pound black powder rockets and those are impressive when they take off, but labor intensive to make.

[jamisonlm3]

7/16" would probably be better. It would give the sticks a little bit more wiggle room when loading. I'm not sure if I have a drill that size. Instead of buying one, I will probably jump up to 1/2". I dobut that will hurt anything. I did make the rack in an older version of sketchup. Pyro Demon has some decent rockets from what I've seen. I've got some I assume to be rewraps of their pound rockets. They're better than cheap ball shells.

[Theinkdon]

I wouldn't worry at all about going 1/2".
I'll have to check out Pyro Demon rockets, thanks.

[shadow2121]

I used 3" spacing on each side but offset one side from the other by 1.5" so they are staggered.
5180

[jamisonlm3]

My current 12 & 10 shot designs has them staggered as well. The spacing between the rockets in the same row is roughly 2.5". The distance beteen those and the rockets in the next row is basically 2". I can get another inch or so by facing the rockets in opposite directioins. I've widened the supports by almost an inch. The bottom support is now a ripped 2x4 with holes drill almost all the way through for the rockets to sit in. This allows me to get a little more spacing and an extra two rockets for rack.

[jamisonlm3]

Was this really five months ago? I put the rack on the backburner to work on other stuff, but I recently finished it with new years coming up. I ended up using the 10 rocket design. I used 5/8" pex pipe to hold the rockets. Oddly enough, a 7/16" dowel fits very snuggly in the pex so I ened up cutting short 1/2" plugs. I tapped them in just like a normal wooden mortar plug. A brad from the ouside goes through both to secure them. The threaded rod is rounded to take the sharp edge and any burs off. Red threadlocker keeps the nuts tight. Almost all the plywood corners are rounded to match my mortar racks. All told, it's not perfect, but I'm pretty happy with it. Pictures are below. Sorry for the bad quality.