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A Complete Guide to the Construction of Homemade Solid Fuel Rocket Motors

David Sleeter, Teleflite Corporation
Newly Published: 2004

The single best book in print about making black powder rocket motors. Comprehensive, accurate, well-written, and beautifully illustrated. Intended for people who are not rocket scientists or engineers, plus abundant data and keen ideas for experienced rocket builders. This is the book you’ve been waiting for!

* More than 600 high-quality photos and drawings
* Build your own with simple tools and easy-to-find materials and chemicals
* Everything you need to know to build 54 proven rocket motor designs
* Thrust from 4 to 58 pounds
* Burn times from 0.7 to 6.3 seconds
* Engine sizes from C-6 to I-100 (capable of carrying a 3-foot rocket to 7,000 ft!)
* Mix your own home-made rocket fuel for 25 cents to 2 dollars per pound
* Make finished rocket motors for under a dollar–1/10th the price of Estes
* Each design includes detailed test-stand data plus 2 flight performance predictions
* 19 chapters covering everything from safety and buying (or making) chemicals, to propellant formulation, motor construction, and homemade test equipment
* All new and original material based on 6 years R&D at Teleflite

Every boy (and many men) wants to build rockets. What could be more fun? What could be more challenging and rewarding with flame, smoke, and rapid flight?

But while building small rockets is not that difficult, the solid information necessary to do it safely and successfully hasn’t been easy to come by.

“But black powder is just saltpeter, charcoal, and sulfur, right?”

Well, yes. But most mixtures of homemade black powder, even when made with the correct 75-15-10 formula, just can’t seem to lift a home-built rocket. What’s in those Estes motors, anyway?

The answer: black powder that’s made of the correct grades of those chemicals, and has been ground, mixed, milled, and loaded the right way, in cases of proper construction, with nozzles of the correct dimensions and material.

And here’s the book that tells how to do it, at home, by yourself, with the simplest of tools and the most basic of chemicals and supplies. If you follow Sleeter’s simple, clear instructions you’ll be able to build rocket motors that will equal and surpass the performance of Estes-type commercial motors. And you’ll be able to do it much cheaper than with store-bought motors. You’ll also learn how to make much bigger and more powerful motors than any you can buy in your local hobby shop.

(Bonus: the author even tells how to find and select potassium nitrate fertilizer and stump remover, then extract high-concentration KNO3; how to make your own NaNO3 “Chile saltpeter”; how to select the proper grades of sulfur at your local garden shop; how to select and mill high-performance charcoal.)

David Sleeter is an experienced rocket designer with many years of successful experimentation behind him. He’s written other popular books about making rocket motors, and this volume presents the culmination of his engineering. Big (528 pages), thick (more than an inch), heavy (nearly three pounds), and of very high quality, Amateur Rocket Motor Construction is a long-need work, filled with practical, hands-on, do-it-yourself, how-to information and data.

Hint: If you’re thinking about working with sugar-nitrate “candy propellants,” or composite polymer propellants, by all means start with this fine book! It covers many of the things you’ll need to know to make any small rocket motor that works.

This hefty volume will take you weeks to read, months to digest, and years to put into practice. Cover to cover it’s loaded with great information for rocketeers of all levels. It actually provides the basis for an authentic self-education in rocket science.

Amateur Rocket Motor Construction is a major contribution to the scientific literature on making high-performance black powder rockets.